


Convergence

by itskathybabe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Codependency, Dark Magic, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Light Magic, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Paranoia disorder, Separation Anxiety, Soulmates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:12:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1301185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itskathybabe/pseuds/itskathybabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic is like an entity. It resides within us like a cancer, growing and developing into an all-consuming fire in our souls, a beautiful infection that shapes us into who we are and who we're meant to be. If you're lucky enough... you can see it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your interest in my story. I do not own, nor will I ever own, anything related to the Harry Potter world, it all belongs to JK Rowling.

Prologue

_London - July, 1980_

It was a dull and dreary day that Tuesday in London. It started out, just like any other. Rose Granger woke up at half past seven in the morning to the usual pitter patter of rain sliding down her window. The modest two bedroom flat in downtown London was nice enough for her, her husband, and twenty three-month-old daughter... though the Mr. and she had been trying to put their finances together for a roomier loft for their daughter to grow up in. Something with a library, preferably, since their only child has expressed an acute interest in gipping her picture book pages in her tiny fists and babbling into the text.

Rose Elizabeth Granger was a dentist, a profession that she didn’t exactly grow up dreaming to obtain, but went through with nevertheless because it brought in a great income and provided their daughter with a happier and more comfortable life. Every morning she and her husband, show up to their Dental office aptly titled “Granger’s Dental” with tired, yet blindingly white smiles, ready to take on their day one cavity at a time.

Downstairs, her husband William was humming lowly as he tended to cooking breakfast at the stove. Their daughter Hermione, a tiny little almost-two-year-old with long unruly tresses of light brown hair and round eyes – traits cloned right off her husband – was already awake, alert, and staring out through the open window with a loud curiosity most toddlers tend to have.

“Mamma, birds! Birds are flying!” she babbled, pointing out the window. Little Hermione was the only one to take notice of the flock of small, black owls rushing past their flat’s windows.

_“The_ birds are flying, dear.” She corrected without thought.

At half past nine, Mrs. Granger saddled up her daughter in the usual get up. A pretty pink wool coat, and matching polka-dotted leggings. The outfit would have been unusual for the season, mid-July in England usually tended to be a tad warmer than the rest of the months, but Hermione had always run at a cooler temperature than others, something that didn’t necessarily worry the two doctors _too_ much.

Rose’s usual routine called for a spot of coffee at her favorite café on their way to Hermione’s day care. As the two young ladies walked the abnormally busy street, she couldn’t help but notice several cloaked figures running up and down the crosswalks, hollering and shouting in several degrees of curious happiness. Men in women, all dressed in old-fashioned garbs of every color, donning frilly, pointed hats, all looked like living caricatures of medieval sorcerers.

Rose Granger, a woman whom seldom went without a smile on her own face, was taken in by the happy aura lighting the city’s usually dismal streets. The grey clouds above everyone cast a gloomy setting to an otherwise festive atmosphere. Every corner she and her tiny daughter turned, a happy smile greeted them from a stranger’s face, and long-tipped top-hats were being thrown into the air in crowds of celebration as men and women and even children cheered at some unknown festivity.

“What’s all this fuss about?” She quickly asked a woman bustling by her. She was a bit younger than the dentist, decked out in a bright fuchsia cloak that comically enhanced her golden blonde hair and glistening green eyes, her face was flushed in excitement as she clutched a long wooden stick in her hand.

The strange girl grinned at Rose and her daughter perched on her hip. “It’s a time of celebration, Muggle! Cheer, for even _you_ are now free as well! You-Know-Who is gone at last!” At her words, a few other oddly-dressed men and women stopped in their hollering to begin a new round of triumphant hoots.

Mrs. Granger, caught up by the spontaneous bout of dancing from the oddly dressed people around her, did not notice the odd stirring in the air around her baby, nor the confused, wide-eyed, scowl the stranger suddenly gave her daughter. Hermione’s expression twisted into a familiar grimace, signaling that she needs to potty or has been unexpectedly upset. Hermione’s eyes began to glisten in her tell-tale sign of discomfort, her face immediately glowing into a bright red flush. Yet, she gave no sound, and Mrs. Granger was unaware of her toddler’s unease and the discomfort of the fuchsia-dressed woman before her.

Mrs. Granger simply smiled and continued on walking toward her café for her and her daughter’s favorite breakfast-time pastries, bypassing the rest of the oddly cloaked figures without another stray thought.

During the rest of their walk, little Hermione’s dainty neck craned back as her curious and frustrated eyes stared up at the owls in the sky. Each one different and more unique than the last as they each swirled in every direction, higher and higher up.

After feeding Hermione a strawberry croissant, cut up into tiny pieces for a child her age to safely consume, she stepped into the daycare center right next door, waiting her turn in the short line of parents leaving their children for the day.

“Good morning, Rose,” Hermione’s childcare teacher greeted. Her face, normally happy and bright upon greeting Mrs. Granger and Hermione, was unexpectedly drawn and stressed this particular morning.

Upon initially meeting Miss Jane Wilkins a few months prior when Hermione first began day care, Mrs. Granger immediately felt some sort of familiarity with the teacher. It was mostly because Miss Wilkins oddly reminded her of her own husband, for some absurd reason.

The teacher’s hair was the same unruly mass of wavy, light brown hair as her husband and daughter. Her round-almond shaped eyes were almost the exact shade of her husband’s, with the exact wry smirk, and straight-lined brows prominently featuring her thin, angular face.

Not to mention, the teacher’s sometimes incessant chatter fondly reminded her of her own daughter’s inane babbling.

More often than she’s liked to admit, she’d had a hunch that the woman might somehow be related to her husband, but shyness kept her from inquiring of the absurdity.

The thing that truly kept her from asking about the woman’s past, however, was the strange sadness Mrs. Granger detected kept within Miss Wilkins. It was the way her eyes sometimes swept over Mrs. Granger whenever she greeted her every morning. Miss Wilkins, when she thought no one was looking, seemed to draw within herself, a little light inside of her would dim and a deep anxiety would appear around her tensed shoulders, as if waiting for someone to pounce at her when her back was turned when she least expected it… as if the weight of the world had been on her shoulders and she'd failed.

Post-traumatic stress, the dental doctor concluded.

Of course, once she noticed another’s eyes on her, Miss Wilkins would smother up her stressed emotions and hide behind a beautiful smile, rotating her middle-aged face into a mask of youthful and ageless beauty. Mrs. Granger chalked it up to Miss Wilkins’ solidarity and mysterious background.

She knew the woman, only a handful of years older than she, had no husband and no children of her own, always with a heavy book in her arms and a tattered old journal as companions whenever she’d bump into her on the street.

“How are you this morning, Jane?” Rose asked, keeping her concern to herself. “Partaking in the odd festivities the rest of London has?”

Miss Wilkins let out a light, tinkling laugh and shook her head at the question. “Today is a… a big day for all of us. Some more than others.” She replied vaguely, a slight apprehension hitching her voice as she eyed the stressed expression on the toddler’s face. “Strange people this city has! But don’t you worry about those cloaked clowns, I’m sure they’re harmless. And hello, Hermione! Have you been practicing your alphabet like I’ve asked?”

Hermione, whom had been quiet all morning, grinned up at Miss Wilkins. “Yes!” she screeched, kicking her legs out to be let down from her mother’s hip.

She was set to the ground, and proceeded to run towards her classmates, singing along to the alphabet boisterously for all to hear.

###  **#**

Later that night, after Hermione had been picked up from childcare and dinner had been set on the table, Mr. Granger listened in on the nighttime news report.

“– _don’t know about that, but it’s not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they’ve had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early – it’s not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight_!”

William muted the television and turned back to his family.

“Strange day I’ve had.” He said, tucking into his piping hot spaghetti.

Rose turned away from her daughter munching away at her own smaller bowl of pasta, getting more noodles and sauce on her face and clothes than in her mouth.

“Dancing people and owls too, dear?”

“Err, yes!” Bill said. His scraggly moustache, a facial feature Rose had adamantly asked him to remove, twitched in amusement. “But that’s not the only thing… you know how I went over to Gary’s office across the street before lunch? He was talking into his fireplace, and I could have… well, I could have sworn I heard a voice reply back!” Rose stared at her husband, unsure if he was making some sort of joke, but his serious face just stared back.

“Uh, huh.”

“I swear, Rosie! It was the oddest thing! They, well… he and the fireplace… were talking – about some man’s death, or a boy… or something or other… I wasn’t sure. When I asked him whom he was speaking with he gave no reply, just acted as if I hadn’t seen anything!”

“You know how Gary Williams is dear, he was probably hitting his brandy earlier than usual today.” Rosie smiled, turning back to attempting to feed her fussy child.

“S’ghetti, momma!” Hermione grinned, red faced from all the bad attempts at feeding herself.

_"Spa-_ ghetti, dear." 

Bill was about to protest her incredulity over his story of talking fireplaces, when an unexpected knock came to their door.

Rose got up to greet the unanticipated guest, and smiled wide when Miss Wilkins’ face greeted her on the other side of the door.

“Oh! Hello again, Jane!”

“I hope I’m not intruding.” Jane greeted, though her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “May I come in? It’s rather urgent.”

“Of course. What a pleasant surprise.”

Rose ushered Jane inside. “May I take your coat?”

“No, thank you, it’s a quick visit, I’m afraid.” Jane frowned, sadness and deep apprehension making her waver.

“Is everything alright?”

As soon as the words left Rose Granger’s mouth, she was met with the sight of a burst of pale green light being released from the end of a stick aimed toward her face. As soon as the light touched her skin, Rose had forgotten exactly whom she was previously speaking to, and the sight of the woman’s face was a stranger to her.

“I’m sorry who are you? What are you doing in my home?” She asked brashly. “Bill! Bill! There’s a woman in our–”

The woman raised that pointed stick again, and the green light was once more released.

“You trust me right now, but as soon as I leave this flat you will forget I was here... and forget ever meeting me. You won’t remember you have a daughter. You and William will search to adopt a happy little baby tomorrow morning at the London orphanage, and forget anything and everything about Hermione Jean Granger.”

Suddenly, all thoughts of her happy two year old were swept out of her mind and replaced with a void. Where maternal and motherly love she once held for her bubbly little two year old, now was replaced by hopeful wishes for a happy, faceless orphan baby she and her husband will soon adopt.

Rose smiled stupidly at a far wall, dreaming up ideas to name the future adopted baby, already writing away financial plans for a bigger loft for the baby to live in… preferably one with a library. A house with a bigger library appealed to her.

She watched the pretty woman in her house maneuver her way into the kitchen, and she followed behind obediently, watching her husband stand up to greet the woman, an unknown child sitting in a highchair with a face filled with spaghetti sauce peered over at her.

The woman repeated the same words to her husband, he relaxed goofily in his chair and this time they both watched with passive expressions as the stranger walked over to the little girl.

“Hermione. I need you to trust me, okay sweetie?”

The child, Hermione presumably, peered up at the woman with pretty eyes.

Rose thought, if she were to adopt a baby, she’d want one to look exactly like this pretty little girl.

“…okay.” Hermione whispered, allowing the stranger to pick her up and walk to the front door with her.

Bill and Rose followed behind them, waiting to watch the two leave through the front to and never be remembered again.

**#**

 

As the door to Mr. and Mrs. Granger’s flat shut behind Miss Wilkins and the sauce-covered baby, a lone figure waited at the end of the hallway.

He was a tall, thin man, with deep set wrinkles and bright eyes. His long, purple robes were wrinkled from his journeys to and fro England’s cities. Pivot Drive, the neighborhood he’d just come back from frequenting, had left him with an unbearable weight on his frail shoulders.

Usually, this man would be much more joyous upon meeting a baby, especially a baby whom would come to change the fate of the world as they know it, but, because of the night’s stress and the long journey he’d just come from, Albus Dumbledore wasn’t in a very sparkling mood.

“Hello.” He smiled, almost timidly at the baby girl.

“Hello. _I'm_  Hermione Granger, and _you_ are?” The toddler replied, nonplussed at the drying red sauce around her mouth and face.

For a two-year old, Hermione Granger had advanced speech and grammar, no doubt from her mother's constant correcting. This brave little girl was exactly what they needed for their plan.

But what Hermione possessed of unparalleled brainpower, she lacked in social graces for a child.

Without warning Hermione reached out to caress Albus’ long wiry, auburn and white beard, uncaring of the tomato sauce she rudely flaked onto his whiskers.

Miss Wilkins gave a deep blush at the toddler’s impolite greeting while the old man, Albus, simply chuckled.

“I am Albus Dumbledore.”

Hermione gave a small nod, agreeing as if she’d known whom he was all along, and continued to caress his beard in her tiny, dirty hand.

“A vastly different meeting than the one you and I had so many years ago, Miss Granger – I mean, Wilkins.” The old man teased, nonplussed by his mistake, and if _anything..._ he’d probably done it on purpose.

Miss Wilkins did not reply, but tugged Hermione closer to her chest.

She followed her ex-professor out of the building and into a nearby alleyway only a few blocks away from the Granger’s apartment building. The alleyway at one point was neighbor to an old orphanage, taken down a few years prior from a fire. Though the vacant lot remained untouched, there were rumors of making room for a new business building.

“Are you sure this is going to fix everything? When I traveled back in my twenties, professor, it changed nothing of the future… how will sending her, me, at this age change anything at all?” Miss Wilkins’ face was scrunched in worry, years and years of stress (43 years of stress, to be exact) were painted on her features. 

“Because _this_ time, dear…” Professor Dumbledore finally responded once reaching their nondescript destination, away from prying eyes at what they were about to do. “This time, we have the advantage of a little thing called ignorance!” 

His twinkling eyes, renewed in their bright gaze by a newfound sense of hope, gazed down at the playful toddler bouncing on Miss Wilkins’ hips. 

“Innocence, Miss Wilkins, is redemption. This child will give him what you could not.” The professor dug into one of his many deep pockets in his frilly, fluorescent robe. A small beaded satchel, a journal, a thick stack of letters tied together by a string, and a thin golden necklace, that at one point was the bane of Miss Wilkins’ very existence, was removed one by one, along with an inconspicuous golden key. “Time Travel, Miss Wilkins, is a very innocuous thing, if one knows what they’re doing. And I believe this time… this time we’ll get it right. Hermione will be sent back with everything that she needs.” 

“But, sir.” ‘Jane’ said, watching him conjure a pink backpack out of thin air and stuff the varying objects inside it. “The immortality potion, the _real_ immortality potion… is…” she hesitated, hating to be the one to object to her old professor’s word. “Is that wise? It’s taken me all these years stuck here to figure the real potion out, is it really the best idea to just hand it over to the enemy like this? Tom Riddle–” she flinched at the name, bringing up old wounds. 

“–will become Voldemort if we do not send this child to him.” 

‘Jane’ quietened down at that, begrudgingly agreeing to Professor Dumbledore’s long suffering intellect. 

The girl in question was now snoring slightly against Jane’s breast, unaware of her fate being discussed by the two people she can trust most in this world. 

“Tom’s greatest weakness was never knowing love, never knowing family. When you were sent back in time, you could not give him that because of your deep-rooted hatred of him for ruining your innocence. This baby, she will grow up and know nothing of the burdens you’ve lived though and the war you grew up in. She will grow up knowing and understanding him, and more importantly, he will grow up with a _companion._ We’ve provided in this bag,” he held up the bottomless pink, bookbag in question, “everything they will need so he won’t seek the answers to his questions through dark means.” 

Jane stared down at the familiar face of the toddler. It had been so long, so long, since she’d thought of herself as young and innocent. She’d lived the span of almost two lifetimes already, and was about to doom herself to another lifetime of uncertainty... because anything concerning Tom Riddle will no doubt result in a rollercoaster of turmoil, no matter how much Dumbledore seems to think otherwise. 

“What will happen to us? When she goes back, I mean? Will I be wiped away from this timeline?” 

The professor remained silent, pondering over her question as he glanced at his strange gold pocket watch. With a sigh he clicked it shut and tucked it away once again. 

“That’s a loaded question for a theoretician, which thankfully I am not.” He smiled, but her unease hadn’t been lifted. 

She shifted the toddler on her hip, as she stirred in her sleep. 

“It’s almost time now.”  Dumbledore sighed again, placing the pink bookbag onto the little girl’s shoulders. 

“She’ll live a hard life in that place.” Jane warned, staring at the dark vacant lot before them as she caressed Hermione’s little head almost protectively against her. 

“I know,” said Dumbledore firmly, “but she’ll have him, I’m sure of it… and when the time comes, they’ll have _me._ Come,” and for the second time that night, he reached for an innocent baby, still sound asleep, and placed her gently on the ground, at the entrance of the remains of a rusted iron gate. 

“It’s time to say our goodbyes.” Hermione Granger, aka Jane Wilkinson, stared down at her infant self. 

The toddler she once was slept soundly against the damp ground, a loose-fitting gold necklace dangling around her neck. Hermione hoped beyond all hope, that this time the timeline would change for real, and that this toddler could accomplish what she could not: help Tom Riddle understand emotions. 

Dumbledore crouched down to the ground, not without giving a few winces at his popping joints, and picked up the golden necklace from the sleeping child’s chest. He held the tiny hourglass on the chain delicately in his hand, and turned the little knob five times counterclockwise. 

Promptly, Hermione Jean Granger, the two year old that will hopefully prevent everything before it starts, vanished into the night of that mid-July 1981, only to reappear in that exact location in downtown London, a few blocks from the Granger’s home building, near a brand new, wrought iron gate branding the ominous title “Wool’s Orphanage” in front of a large brown bricked building… fifty two years in the past.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything Harry Potter related, it all belongs to J.K. R. 
> 
> Also, I apologize for any slight misconceptions with the characters or timeline, this is my first HP story and it's unbeta'd. I am a US Citizen and my knowledge of Brit slang mainly derives from a few conversations with an old pen pal from Conventry, and Google.
> 
> And lastly, I hope no one gets offended that the two-year olds don't "sound" like two-year olds. It's a little uncomfortable writing a whole few chapters of text consisting of "heehee" and "do you want to pway?" So, let's all just make-believe that this is like that movie Baby Geniuses (only this time, the only real geniuses are Hermione and Tom). All the children will speak the way children do, but don't be surprised when Tom and Hermione actually hold decent conversations in the years to come. 
> 
> With that, enjoy!

Chapter One

_London - July, 1928_

It has now been a full three days since Hermione woke up at the gates to Wool’s Orphanage. The matron, Miss Cole, a well-rounded woman with kind eyes and a no-nonsense attitude, took Hermione in as a stray almost immediately. The toddler, trained by her paranoid driven A-type parents, had been ingrained to know her home's address since the moment she could utter a few mumbles, so she would know exactly how to get home if she were ever lost.

This moment in time was precisely what her parents prepared her for, and with all the charisma and persuasion a little girl could muster, she led the confused Miss Cole by the hand and guided her down the cracked sidewalk, two blocks to the East of downtown London, to stop at a brand new apartment building. It was currently vacant, and still smelling of fresh cement from its final stages of brick layering.

“This is where I live!” Hermione announced, ready to shove the “CAUTION” tape away from the doorless entry into the building’s empty lobby. Plaster dust lined the tiled floors and sweaty construction workers were eyeing the woman and toddler with different levels of confusion and annoyance.

“No one lives here, missy.” Miss Cole said, empathic to the girl’s obvious confusion. Hermione eyed the familiar building, though it looked newer and never before lived-in, it was quite obviously her home. “Where are your family, hm? Parents?”

“Momma’s a dentist, and daddy too!”

 _“Dentists?”_ Miss Cole asked, then muttered to herself, “no wonder you’ve been left at the orphanage. No work for dentists these days, probably went bankrupt…”

After two full days of an ongoing police search investigation for a “William and Rose Granger” and any friends or family, only to come up empty, was how Hermione found herself as a new member of Wool’s Orphanage: Home for Boys and Girls. Her large wardrobe, one that occupied almost the entire shoe-box sized room, contained nothing but three shabby wool hand-me-down dresses to call her own, a thin sweater, and an unfamiliar pink book bag – one that, with all her and Miss Cole’s might would _not_ open… not even with a pair of sharp scissors would the fabric of the bag tear to reveal its contents.

Her room was small and dismal. The mattress was lumpy and the sheets so thin she could see through the itchy cloth. Just like everything else in the building, the walls in her room were a dusty brown brick, to match the unpolished brown floorboards. There was nothing to decorate the room with, and no nightlight to fight off the night monsters her daddy would tease her of. After her second night, she grew accustomed to the creaky sounds of the giant building settling, the echoes of babies wailing somewhere far off from her room, the pitter patter of tiny feet belonging to the little mice she saw only once or twice.

She didn't mind staying confined to the ugly bedroom, because soon her momma and daddy will come back from work and take her to the park like they always do.

The brick, a prominent feature all the building’s this side of town had, trailed to the inside walls of the “home for boys and girls,” causing the chilly outside wind to draft even cooler inside. Miss Cole, unaware of Hermione’s strange condition of an unnaturally low body temperature, didn’t give her sufficient bed sheets and coats.

Three days upon arriving, Hermione was escorted out of her tiny third-floor room by an older orphan girl. She was dirty faced, and dressed modestly, with shoes so scruffy and holed that Hermione (because of her short height) could count the thread in the gray socks the girl wore beneath.

“Get up, dolly, time for you to meet the other kiddies.” The unnamed orphan said as she led baby Hermione by the hand down the hall and down the winding stone stairs to the main floors.

“Won’t I be going to childcare? Will I see my parents today?” Hermione asked, eager to tell her parents and teacher-friend Miss Wilkins all about her strange weekend.

However, the older orphan misunderstood her question. “Monday’s are for house cleaning. No couples will be coming in to look at us today, so all the toddlers, the ones that can’t work or clean yet, are taken into the play room.” At the word “playroom” Hermione eagerly wobbled behind the older girl with newfound enthusiasm, unaware of the sad and jealous glances garnered from all the older kids who passed the youngest resident.

“If you need anything, Miss Cole is in the kitchens.” The girl said, and left Hermione to her own perusing of the playroom.

The room was tiny, it's only occupants were six other children. The only visible toys was a pile of wooden blocks, its paint was faded and each side had at least a couple of dents and chips in the wood. The walls were, of course, gray and the floor was even more so dank and dirty looking, yet the air vents gave off a strong scent of crisp lemon cleaning solution, it's heady scent practically cleared her sinuses and made her eyes water upon first entering.

The stained gray walls were bare, all except for the one furthest to her, holding a single picture fame. Hermione made her way towards it, unaware of all the young eyes watching her movements. She squinted at the wall's only decor. It was not a picture frame. It was a white poster board, torn and frayed at the edges and held up by yellowing masking tape. Within the white page it contained large black lettering, big enough for even a half-blind person to read. The almost-two year old began to recite the words... loudly.

" _CAT, HAT, MAT… SPIN, TIN, FIN…FLIP, SIP, CLIP… CALL, WELL, SWELL–”_

She was interrupted from her shaky reading by a tap on her shoulder. Hermione turned around in fright and was met face to face with a girl, a little taller but presumably her age, with heavy freckles and dirty blonde hair held back by a frayed yellow ribbon.

"Excuse me." The gap-toothed girl whispered politely, yet with an undercurrent of shyness. "Tom doesn't wike it when w-we int'rupt when he’s playing. You shouldn't 'peak so loudly."

Hermione furrowed her brows and searched around the room, all five other toddlers were staring at her, all except for one small boy, sitting alone at the furthest corner with a battered picture book in his hands. His spot allowed him a view of the entire room and its occupants.

She assumed _that_ was Tom.

Hermione smiled at the girl but said nothing, and half-stomped over to this Tom boy. She did not hear the quiet gasps of the children in the room around her.

She reached Tom, her shadow from the room's light shrouding over his book's colorful pictures. "Are you Tom?" She demanded, without needing to, as she already had deduced the answer.

Tom looked up, his unsurprised face almost hostile. He did not respond, only clutched his book infinitesimally tighter in his grip.

"Can I see the pictures too?" She asked instead.

Tom, face still regarding her indifferently, shut book with a loud "thud" yet remained silent. He stood up to match her height, she was only a few centimeters shorter but under his unwavering gaze she felt all but two inches tall. Her short, chubby legs, bare because of the Orphanage’s gray uniform shorts, began to grow frozen and pin-prickly as she faced another wave of her body’s bizarre unexplained body temperature regulation.

"Can we sit together?" She asked again, more politely, and a bit desperately for him to just _say_ something. Anything.

She felt a strange tingling, almost painful against her cheek, the way it would feel like after her momma would give her a spank if she was being naughty. Immediately, Hermione's eyes watered at the painful unknown pricking against her face, wishing it would go away, and unsure exactly where it’d come from. The tingling feeling increased until it was almost unbearable, her hand reached up to wipe away at the phantom needle pinches.

There was a light smoke seeping from beneath his feet, rising to faintly swirl around them both. Somehow, and she wasn't sure how and couldn’t explain why, she had an inkling that it was the boy and that smoke that made her feel the painful pinpricks on her cheek.

She almost didn't notice the cold feeling in her limbs fade away where the smoke touched her.

With the unexplainable feeling that it was _him_ making her feel this pain, Hermione grew mad. So mad, that her hands fisted at her sides, and her face turned red like a ripe tomato, just like it always did when she was about to cry from frustration.

The lone light bulb above the children flickered, the dangling fixture swayed against an unknown breeze in the windowless room and she was wishing so hard that Tom would feel the painful tickle too! Something in Hermione clicked into place, her body temperature spiked back to normal, and she saw a glittery light, almost invisible, release from her hands and fly toward Tom's face.

In front of her, she watched Tom's expressionless face morph into a childlike grimace. His left cheek turned red as if someone had slapped him, a small handprint emerged on his face, red and splotchy and she knew he'd have a mark from it for days to come.

Tom's eyes grew wide as he lifted his hand to the marked cheek. His eyes did not water, and he did not cry like any other normal child would. She knew the sting might be even more prickly and uncomfortable than the one on her own cheek. But instead of growing angry with her for "hitting" him, his eyes remained on hers. Calculating. An intelligent curiosity watching her like a hawk, waiting for her next move, silently daring her to play his game.

"Can we play together?" She demanded again of the older little boy, her hands still fisted at her sides and the pain in her cheek steadily receding.

Tom removed his hand from his now bruising cheek, and she _almost_ felt bad about the painful looking welt on his face, but she didn't have it in her to feel too bad about it just yet.

To the surprise of every witness in the room, Tom nodded his head, walked over to the pile of mismatched toy blocks, and sat in front of them.

For the next twenty minutes, they were both quietly playing with the little blocks. It was awkward at first, neither knew how to act around the other. Hermione would babble about the birds she saw flying in the streets the other day on her way to her childcare, and Tom would listen on in silent confusion. The awkwardness quickly morphed into a battle of 'who could build the tallest tower of blocks and then crash them the loudest'.

Hermione would pile them up, the letters on each side stacked neatly so it was alphabetized exactly the way Miss Wilkins taught her, then Tom would sneak up and knock them down with a kick or a push before she could finish. Each block fell and another chip would fall out of the wood further breaking the toy, and though it was obvious Tom was having fun by the happy glimmer in his eye, he did not smile outright _once_ … the strange behavior of the young boy did not stop the giggles to erupt from Hermione at the fun chaos he would create, however.

Tom and Hermione were distracted from their innocent destruction as a girl walked up to the two's corner cautiously, her body language identically fearful and shy as the blonde girl that had tapped her shoulder before.

Tom remained quiet, inspecting the faded red letter “R” on one of the blocks, as he rudely ignored the other girl's presence completely.

"S-S'cuse me," the girl mumbled.

Hermione smiled at the girl happily, "Hello! What's your name? _I'm_ Hermione Granger."

"Amy B-Benson."

"You wanna play?" Hermione asked, standing up so she could speak to the other toddler face to face. Amy nodded.

"The other kids, they-they were wondering, if... Well... If you wanna ...um...go wiff us and play dress up?" Amy asked, shaking like a leaf as she looked at anywhere but at Tom.

"Sure, we'll play!" Hermione said excitedly. She reached down to pull Tom off the floor but Amy's fearful voice stopped her.

"N-no! Not him!" She cried out. "Just you, Her'minny."

Hermione's eyes furrowed, staring through the girl as she wondered why Tom couldn't play too.

"Why _not_ Tom?" She asked as if he wasn't even there.

"Well... He-he doesn't like playing dress up..."

Hermione glared at the girl. "You didn't even ask him!"

Amy visibly flinched, her knees began to quake so hard that Hermione half feared the girl was going to wet herself. "T-T-Tom... You wanna-"

"No. I don't want to play with you smelly babies." Tom's quiet child-like voice was so mean she almost felt bad for Amy.

She was not expecting Tom to actually respond, in fact, he hadn't spoken a single word the entire twenty minutes since they’ve been playing with the blocks. So, when he actually responded, his soft whispery voice would have caused her to jump in fright along with Amy, if it wasn’t for the funny lisp in his pronunciation of the letter _S_.

Amy was about to scamper back to the other toddlers in happy defeat when Hermione's voice cut off her short-lived relief.

"Why not!" She demanded of Tom, stomping her foot and standing over him with clenched fists. "I wanna play with them! We either go play dress up, or... Or..." She fought for an appropriate ultimatum, "or I'll NEVER talk to you ‘gain Tom Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is!"

Tom glared up at Hermione, the first real emotion he’d ever revealed to her on his face. To Amy's surprise and horror, he stood up, grabbed Hermione's wrist, and proceeded to lead her to the group of uneasy children sitting in a half circle around a trunk filled with different handmade costumes.

Hermione watched all the kids stiffen up and stare at Tom as if he was both their hero and worst enemy.

"Hello!" She greeted just like Miss Wilkins taught her to do in front of new people. "We can play teacher! I'm Miss Granger, and _you_ are?" She asked, not giving the other kids a chance to agree to her game, and pointed at a girl at the edge of the semi-circle.

"I'm Teresa." A bespectacled girl answered, the eldest looking toddler of the group.

"I’m Billy!" Screamed a boy beside Teresa before Hermione could point at him to speak.

Hermione frowned. "Wait your turn… then I point at you." She bossed and the fat boy simply glared back. "What's your favorite toy, Teresa?"

She took her time going around the circle the same way a teacher would do during the first day of class, asking each toddler something about themselves. Though Hermione, whom had never attended a proper class room a day in her life, had no idea if introductions actually occurred like this or not.

Finally, she deliberately pointed at Billy lastly. "And _you_ , what's your favorite… uhm, color?"

" _Not_ brown! Like your poop hair!" He laughed loudly, all the other kids, save for Tom, Amy, and Teresa, laughed along too. Billy reached up to harshly tug on a long tendril out of her pigtail, ripping a few strands out of her ribbons with the brute force.

" _OUCH_!" She cried out loudly, gaining the attention of Tom who had been staring off, not paying attention during the introductions. He got up off the floor swiftly, stomping over to her and pulling Hermione away from the bigger toddler.

"What ‘e do?" Tom asked whispered seriously. Her eyes were teary as she rubbed at the spot on her scalp, more painful than that pinch Tom gave her by a hundred times.

"He said I had poop hair and then he yanked on it!"

It seemed, from Tom's swift reaction after her getting hurt, and that insignificant little tattle, it cemented her rank in that orphanage for the rest of the years she'd reside in it. By the actions that will come next, prompted by her pained words, two-year-old Hermione will forever be looked at with the same reverenced fear they treated Tom with.

Tom's face, expressing mild concern over his new friend's pain, closed off as his eyes darkened. A chilling glare, unfit for _any_ toddler to have unless they were the spawn of the Devil himself, shadowed over his features.

Slowly, Tom's head turned to the side to glare at the bigger boy.

Billy was staring at Tom the way one would stare at the boogeyman.

Suddenly, out of now where, Tom thrust out his gaunt arms and pushed the rotund boy so hard he flew across the room with supernatural speed, his head hitting the wall with a loud "BANG" creating a hole in the plaster, the blared noise echoed out through the open door, loud enough to alert someone of the fight.

At the angle Hermione was standing, though, she realized that Tom didn't even _touch_ Billy.

The rest of the kids, all except for Hermione, screamed for the boy that flew across the room, ran over and surrounded him.

Suddenly, before any more justice could be served by Tom, Miss Cole ran in to the unattended room, her swept back hair was frazzled and sweaty from a day full of cleaning with the older orphans.

"What's going on here?" She screamed, her voice boomed, causing the other toddlers to cower. Tom stood beside Hermione, a united front against the other children.

"Miss Cole!" Billy sniffled loudly. "I'm dying!" He cradled his head where a tiny red bump was already forming on the side where his head had hit, the air vents blasted, trickling fallen plaster over his greyish-brown hair.

Miss Cole shuffled over to Billy as much as her thick body allowed her to, she bent over, almost ripping the seams of her ankle-length skirt with the movement. "You've got a bump on your head, boy! Who did this?!"

Billy wasted no time in pointing a shaky hand at her and Tom. "They did! Pushed me, he did!" he cried, hot, wet tears flowing from his angry eyes.

Quickly thinking on her feet before Tom could open his mouth, Hermione cried out. " _He_ hit Tom!" She cried, rushing over to Miss Cole and holding her skirt, playing up her innocent ‘puppy dog' eyes that always let her get away with naughty things with her own parents.

"The kids didn't wanna play with me because I’m new… and Tom told them to let me play, but then Billy said no because I was a baby, and he hit Tom... and I pushed Billy because Tommy was only trying to help! Miss Cole, Billy was so mean and he said I... I was never going to get adopted because no one was going to adopt a baby whose real parents didn’t want them!" She wailed falsely, hoping Tom wouldn't get punished for defending her from the bullying boy.

"Is this true Billy? Did you hit Tom and say those mean things to our new resident?" Miss Cole asked the boy sharply, picking up the tiny little, messy haired toddler and cradling her against her ample buxom. From under Miss Cole's chin, Hermione glared at Billy severely.

But Billy either wasn't afraid of Hermione, or didn't understand her glare.

"No!" He cried, stumbling to the matron’s feet. "Not true. Tell her, Tom! You hit me!"

"Billy hit me." Tom said simply, his whispery voice for the first time was filled with emotion as he sadly pointed at the bruise Hermione gave him on his cheek.

"N-no! No! Guys!" He yelled through hysterical tears for the other kids to help, "tell her! I didn't do anything! I just pulled her hair, I didn't mean for it to hurt, I swear!"

The other kids didn't need prompting from Tom, as they all wordlessly agreed on the false accusation that Billy did hit Tom and then told Hermione she was never going to get adopted, even though it was not at all what truly happened.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Billy." Miss Cole said sharply, gently placing Hermione down next to Tom. She hauled Billy up by the arm, almost brutally.

Immediately, Hermione felt guilty for lying, and swore to herself she'd never do it again unless it was _really_ necessary. Billy's cries and screams as he was taken to the time-out closet could have been heard through the entire orphanage.


	3. Chapter 3

_December, 1930_

It had taken about four months or so since Hermione’s first arrival that July morning to realize that her family was long gone. Then, it had taken her an two entire years in that miserable place, to completely forget about her life before the orphanage all together.

William, Rose, and Hermione Granger were never going to be a family again, and the sad fact was cushioned by the inexplicable happiness she felt around her friend Tom.

Tom, the quiet boy that defended her against Billy the Bully time and time again, was her first ally in the Orphanage, and the only person she truly held dear in the seventeen months she’s lived there.

It didn’t take her long to remember every name and face, and eventually go on to make tentative friends out of the children her age. She actively tried to avoid Billy Stubbs as much as she could. Hermione was so well liked in the gloomy home, Miss Cole decided to throw a small party for Christmas Day, something that was usually unheard of due to low funds… but because of Hermione’s, and thus Tom’s, insisting, Miss Cole decided to give the children a treat this year.

Even Tom, the little Grinch that usually holed himself up in his room to avoid others, crawled out of his hole to gift Hermione with a quiet “Merry Christmas” and an honest smile – much to the shock of the rest of the house’s inhabitants.

"I thought the lad never smiled because he 'ad no teeth!" one of the older boys exclaimed in shock that morning. 

But just because Hermione was getting on well in the orphanage, didn’t mean her best friend did too. Tom Marvolo Riddle was born inside the alleyway next to the orphanage, his mother died upon giving birth to him just outside its walls. His father never wanted to claim him upon hearing news of his birth, and thus Tom remained orphaned with no other family to contact. It was a sad life he was born into, and his misfortune garnered a lot of teasing and mean jokes among all the other children.

It was to the surprise, and happy approval of Miss Cole, that her most unlikely resident to be adopted, had found such a resilient friend in such a charming girl like Hermione.

Miss Cole hoped, that because of the girl’s positive presence, that it could somehow polish his attitude toward the world and in turn boost his capability in being taken in before he grew too old for any couple to want him. He was already turning six in a few weeks, something that should have been cause for celebration... but here at the orphanage, every year earned was another unlucky year with less chance of getting adopted.

But the kids their age, the ones whom spent the most time around them in the playrooms, knew better than to think Tom and Hermione were just some normal kids.

Weird things happened wherever they went.

Animals followed them around, objects moved around inexplicably without being touched; the children were too confused by their natural fear of the occurrences to tell an adult.

Hermione was the  _only_  person brave enough to playfully tease Tom and not be punished unusually for it later, and in turn, Hermione was the only one lucky enough to have any semblance of kindness shone back from Tom.

A few months prior, Tom had been in route to the playroom to meet with Hermione when he was stopped by a group of older boys. They noticed Tom had a cherry lollypop in his hand, gifted to him by Miss Cole for keeping his room tidy, and was quietly sucking it as he walked. The rumor was, they pushed Tom so hard the lolly fell from his mouth and the candy shattered on the ground with the impact.

A couple of days later… a quiet Sunday afternoon was interrupted by the sound of screaming. One of the boys from that group, the one whom had pushed into Tom, was found locked inside a dark cupboard, a cherry lollypop stuck to his tongue as if it had been cemented to the very tissues of his mouth.

“…And-and now Jonny  _still_  has the scar on his tongue! Right where the red lollypop was glued onto by  _him_.” Billy finished his tale with a quiet mysterious whisper, pointing his chubby finger at the boy in question that sat only a few chairs away.

The adults in front of the kids, Mr. and Mrs. Jaxens, stared wide-eyed at Billy’s unusual story.

Four toddlers sat aligned in a short row against the wall, in familiar (and uncomfortable) wooden chairs. They were all currently residing in the “Meeting Room,” the place Miss Cole likes to take the prospective parents to meet the different children before having a one-on-one conference to get to know each child better before adopting.

Mr. and Mrs. Jaxens were the first victims- ahem-  _visitors_ that bright Friday morning.

“Quite the imagination, that one’s got.” The wife whispered to her husband, all the while with a pleasant, albeit fake, smile toward Billy and a wary glance at Tom.

Miss Cole frowned in anger at Billy, but did not reprimand him in front of the prospective adopting couple. “Yes, here at Wool’s we encourage all kinds of creative–”

“Don’t listen to Billy!” Hermione cried out, clutching Tom’s hand in her small grip. She sat next to the quiet boy, glaring at the bully with all the might the little frizzy haired girl could muster.

“And who are you, doll?” Mr. Jaxens greeted, eyeing the frizzy haired toddler clutching to the small boy.

“ _I’m_  Hermione Jean Granger.”

“Hello, Hermione Jean Granger.” Mrs. Jaxens greeted, smiling widely, much to the displeasure and envy of the other children minus Tom.

“Our dear Miss Granger is our special girl here at Wool’s. She’s exceptionally intelligent,” Miss Cole boasted. “Though… she has very peculiar demands that none of the other foster parents have seemed to be able to endorse.”

“Demands?” Mr. Jaxens asked, peering at the little girl with a leering smile over his spectacles. Tom’s hand in hers tightened its grip as he noticed the older man’s smile at Hermione.

Miss Cole didn’t answer, allowing the couple to see for themselves once they got their allotted time to converse with Hermione privately if they so wished it.

#

About an hour later, Tom and Hermione sat out in the hall together as they waited for Hermione’s turn to speak to the Jaxens alone. Neither child ever liked the adoption process due to Miss Cole’s incessant pestering about how much happier they’d be with a family.

Hermione agreed with Miss Cole, but Tom seemed to think Hermione and the orphanage were more than enough for him. And so, after the little three year old girl turned down every offer received by prospective parents when they weren’t willing to adopt the strange, emotionless boy... she went and sought out Tom, letting the black smoke crawl out of his fingers and curl around her body to soothe her worries away.

“Tommy,” Hermione whispered, still holding his little hand in hers, “if we get ‘dopted together, will that make us brother and sister?” Hermione asked her friend.

Tom furrowed his brow, and held her hand to his frail chest protectively. “Adopted," the older boy corrected. "And I don’t know, Mi. We might not get adopted anyway. People don't like me much.”

“Tommy, you just have to be nicer to the adults,” she warned. Tom ignored her, unwilling to listen to her usual lecture on the benefits of being kind to others.

He nodded though, agreeing with her and promising he’d try better to not automatically kick the adults’ legs whenever they thought it appropriate to brush his hair with their fingers. Her tiny body huddled against his for warmth as the air vents loudly turned on, blasting cool hair towards them.

“Are you cold, Mi?” he asked in concern. “Why are you always cold?”

She shrugged her shoulders, tightening her thin sweater as that familiar gold shine was unwillingly released from her fingers- the unintentional release of her glitter was usually the cause of her low body temperature. Tom eyed the familiar golden aura and poked at it. The wispy gold glitter curled around his skin like an old friend, bringing a small smile to his usually expressionless face.

“Show me your glitter, Tommy, it makes me feel warmer.” She whispered, holding her hands outstretched to him and allowing Tom to play with the glitter being released from her frigid palms.

"Don't call me Tommy, I hate that nickname." He growled, but regardless of his tone, small wisps of dark smoke uncurled from Tom’s fingertips and wrapped around Hermione’s shoulders like a warm, dark blanket.

It looked like the smoke Miss Cole left in her ash tray after she finished her cigarette, dark gray, almost black, shadowy tendrils curled in the air and danced along with the shimmer from her hands. Above them the lights flickered eerily.

The door behind them jingled, and immediately Tom and Hermione hid their “glitter” back into their bodies, instinctively understanding that no one should know exactly how  _different_  they are from the others.

“–pleasure meeting you!” Teresa, the kind girl Hermione met her first day and was still unadopted, called through the open door.  “You can go in, Mione.” Teresa said.

“Don’t call her that.” Tom whispered, glaring at Teresa furiously for using one of  _his_  nickname for  _his_  friend. Hermione patted his knee as she got up.

“’s okay Tom, she can call me Mione if she wants to.”

Teresa visibly paled under Tom’s intense glower though.

“It’s okay, Hermione,” she said, and then walked back to her room without another word.

Hermione rolled her eyes at Tom, and pushed him hard enough for him to fall back down onto his butt. “You sit and wait here, I'll be 'ight out!”

“Wait.” Tom called out, removing his dark sweater and placing it around her shoulders. “If you need me, I’ll be right here.”

“But you'll be cold too?” she asked while wrapping his warm coat around her shaking shoulders. It smelled like soap and apples.

“You need the sweater more, Mi.”

It was typical Tom behavior to act as if Hermione was leaving into a war zone whenever she left his near vicinity. Every time Hermione left his line of sight, Tom would stomp around the building, feeling no remorse as he punished each child that got in the way of his search, until he’d found her again, immediately taking her hand in his until his breathing calmed down. Hermione would be lying if she said the same panic didn’t occur to her whenever her Tommy wasn’t next to her too, but she never took her panic to the extremes Tom’s tantrums took.

The doctor Miss Cole brought in, the one sent in to talk to Tom, had explained that this behavior was a new psychological term called “codependency” and was common in children that held a special bond with each other, or felt most comfortable around each other because of some mutual benefit. Doctor Hammond was very adamant that it was nothing to worry about... unless they got older and  _still_  behaved that way, of course.

Hermione reentered the Meeting Room. Mr. and Mrs. Jaxens were still seated on the velvet green couch, though Mrs. Jaxens had shed her winter coat to make herself more comfortable. She noticed that Miss Cole was not present in the meeting.

Hermione got down to business. “Mr. and Mrs. Jaxens, I understand that you are here to ‘dopt me. However, the real question is why  _I_ should want to be ‘dopted by  _you_?”

The Jaxens’ eyes widened comically by her business like, bossy tone. Hermione sat up straight in her chair, looking nothing less than a princess on her little throne, the pink ribbon in her messy hair was her crown.

“We’ll…” Mrs. Jaxens began, “I’ve always wanted a little brat, I mean-  _baby_ , but I couldn’t make one of my own. So we finally got enough money now to start a… family.”

“We’ll have a lot of nice toys and pretty things we can be able to afford for you. Cookies and sugar treats, and anything you’ll ever want. A room fit for a true princess such as yourself.” Mr. Jaxens bribed with a toothy smile.

Hermione was not impressed, judging by the little arch in her brow and purse of her lips. “I will not be ‘dopted unless Tom gets ‘dopted too.” She announced after a moment of silence.

“Are those your ‘demands’?” Mrs. Jaxens asked distastefully with a roll of her eyes, crossing her arms to look at the little girl critically. Hermione had tangled, bushy hair that she did not brush in her haste to find Tom for the day’s Meetings. It looked like a birds nest. Today she was wearing a thin gray sweater dress, and a light black sweater belonging to Tom over it to keep her warm. Her shoes were shiny and polished enough to see her own face reflected back, and she had foregone the mandatory tights this morning because they were itchy and made her feel confined.

“Yes.” She replied to the man. “My name is Hermione Jean Granger, I am five years old, my parents were William and Rose, both dentists. I can singing my ABC’s backwards and can count to the number one-hundred and even further if you so wish me to. Tom is my very best friend and I will not leave this place if he doesn’t go with me.”

“The times of economics are bloody tough right now, Hermione.” Mrs. Jaxens said almost angrily, uncaring that the three year old had no idea what “economics” meant. “It is taking a lot of us just to adopt one kid, to adopt two–”

“–come on, Patrice!” Mr. Jaxens cut off almost rudely. “Our…  _business…_  is booming right now with all the wankers, um… I mean  _people_ , depressed over the upcoming war. Selling snow on the streets, and selling our girls has brought us more money than we can dream. If we break the mouth she’s got, then this kid will make us money when she’s older! We can afford an extra sodding kid. The boy can be like a little heir.”

“But just look at her, Max. She’s so tiny, she’ll grow and with that bloody hair of hers she’s going to need extra visits to the parlor. A girl is more than enough hassle already, ‘sides, they grow tits. I know you like to sell ‘em ones with tits. We can’t get the boy. We’ll have to settle for a different girl.”

Mr. Jaxens stood up and leaned over Hermione, he touched her hair in his hand, caressing her shoulder as he touched, poked, and prodded her like one would inspect a horse before buying.

“She’s got good teeth. Baby teeth are worth, what? A few extra sickles in these times?”

“Max, this isn’t the great depression! It’s 1930, good God. No one is going to buy baby teeth, those times of oppression are over!”

Hermione didn’t know what their conversation meant, but she didn’t like the way Mr. Jaxens’ thumb was circling on her shoulder, and she didn’t like the ugly sneer on Mrs. Jaxens’ face. She had a feeling that Mr. Jaxens and his wife were not the kind people they portrayed themselves to be.

A memory of her mother and father, the people she rarely thought of, popped into her mind. They had once told her about what to do if a stranger came and talked to her.

“ _If someone you don’t know begins talking to you… just turn around and look for momma and daddy, okay?_ ”

Her parents weren’t here with her anymore… but she did have Tom. And something inside her, that same place inside her that she called her glitter from, rattled in her mind and demanded she leave the room and take Tom and herself as far away from these people as possible.

_Tom. I need to leave, these people are bad. These people are bad, Tom._

Just as she was beginning to feel her telltale signs of distress, Tom opened the door and sauntered into the room. The little boy’s dark gaze zeroed in on Mr. Jaxens’ close proximity and hand on Hermione’s shoulder.

“Hello there, boy!” Mr. Jaxens greeted from beside Hermione, leaving her side to sit back down next to his wife. His jovial smile on his face did not match the gleam in his eyes.

“Hermione, Miss Cole is looking for you.” Tom lied, opening the door wider for Hermione to exit. “It’s my turn to speak to the Jaxens now.”

“Well, hey now, boy! I think it’s up to  _us_  to decide if–” Mr. Jaxens was cut off by the toddler’s frown. So shocked was he by a small child giving him such a peculiar glare, he immediately shut up and instinctively sat up straighter.

Tom gingerly let Hermione out of the door by her hand, and softly closed it shut after she had shakily left the room, clutching to his dark sweater around her shoulders. He struggled for a moment to boost himself into the tall chair she had vacated, and sat watching the couple, waiting for them to speak first.

“This one  _is_  cute.” Mrs. Jaxens whispered, eyeing the thin little boy with unruly wavy black hair. “Maybe we  _can_  make the exception. After all, a cute kid like him? Tom, right? How old are you, Tom?”

“I’ll be six on the 31st.”

“Six years old! You hear that, Patrice? Almost six years old and he already walks and talks like a man!” Max grinned greedily, mentally calculating exactly how he can use this child to his advantage in his business in human trafficking. Everyone trusted kids! A young woman would easily be reeled in by a stray boy on the streets… Tom could lead them into an alley–

“D'you actually believe Billy?” Tom whispered, his hands folded in his lap. Compared to the chair’s previous occupant, this child was astoundingly quiet and seemingly obedient… if it weren’t for his dark, fearsome stare-

“I beg your pardon?”

“Billy's story. He got it all wrong. I didn't lock that boy in a dank cubbard or choke him with a lolly becuase he merely pushed me in the hall. Oh, no. I did it because he tried being funny by sticking a half-eaten lolly into Hermione's hair. It took me an hour to get her to stop crying, so I tormented that boy for her. Imagine then, Mr. and Mrs. Jaxens, what I'd do to you for thinking you can  _actually_  get away with trying to take her away from me... Tell me how you could think me such a street-stupid boy that doesn't know what monsters such as yourselves are actually here for. Unpleasant business. That's what you want me and Miney for isn't it?"

"You're mad! You know nothing, you useless brat." Max barked, jabbing a finger at Tom and anger. "Let's go Patrice, we're leaving!"

Tom ignored them, watching them try to gather their things as quickly as they could. "You think I'm  _mad_?" Tom stood up on the wooden chair, making him feel ten feet tall with the way the two cringed. "I’ll give you two the option. Either leave quietly and never come back, or I go and tell Miss Cole what we've discussed today.”

"You're a six year old brat, you know nothing of what you think."

Tom smiled, and with nothing but a wish, the door behind them locked with a loud  _click._

#

A few weeks later, Tom and Hermione were sneaking into the gardens after breakfast when they stumbled upon the daily newspaper. Hermione was the one whom had picked it up, and took the print with them to their favorite little hiding spot by the largest tree in the little garden.

“What d’you got there, Mione?” Tom asked, playfully sticking his fingers in the mud and making odd shapes and squiggles. The rain had finally stopped and everything was humid and wet, staining their clothes as soon as they sat down on the ground.

“Newspaper! We can use this to make hats and planes!” she cried out jovially, ripping a page off the stapled binding to fold up into a makeshift hat, though by “hat” it was just an unevenly folded page balanced on her head precariously. The two children had no idea that on that ripped page, held the news story of a husband and wife, taken into a mental asylum that week after proclaiming they've seen 'The Devil.'

“Brilliant idea, Hermione!” Tom cried happily, his eyes bright, and grin wide enough she could see his gap toothed smile. He wiped his muddy hands on Hermione’s dress mischievously and laughed impishly at her reaction.

“Tom!” She screamed, disgusted as the cold mud got caught in her hair. “You got it in my hair!”

“Wouldn’t be the first time your hair catches something horrid!” he teased, referring to the boy that put the lolly in her hair a few weeks back. Suddenly, his happy cries were replaced by a fearful one as he watched a snake sidling up toward Hermione’s leg. “Mione, don’t move!”

Hermione immediately stopped moving at Tom’s warning. She felt something cold slide along her bare leg, inching its way up. Her heart rate increased when she looked down to find a fat snake. Its scales were brown and sharp, pinching and tugging on her skin when it moved, causing her leg to redden and almost bleed from the sharp superficial cuts.

“Tom…” Hermione whined lowly, her breathing laboring as the snake opened its mouth revealing two pointy fangs. She watched in fear as Tom leaned down slowly, inching his way to the sake.

“It’s talking to us.” Tom murmured, gazing into the fearsome red eyes of the Common Adder almost lovingly. “He’s saying hello.”

“Then tell it to stop saying hello because he’s hurting me!”

"It's not like I speak  _snake_ , Hermione. Don't be ridiculous."

"Well do  _something_!"

As the words left her mouth, Tom sat close to her ensnared leg. A low hiss released from his mouth, unlike anything she’d ever heard and if she closed her eyes, she would imagine there were two snakes next to her and not just one. Immediately, she began to feel the coil around her short, chubby leg loosen and the pain receded. Hermione looked down in excitement as the snake slithered off her leg and stared back at her and Tom.

“Say hello, Min. He won’t bite.” Tom said, holding his best friend close to him just in case.

“Hello.” Hermione waved meekly, feeling silly for talking to the serpent. Playing with animals wasn’t anything new to Tom and Hermione, but actually talking to them was a new occurrence. After a few moments though, the only sound she heard coming from the snake was a soft little hiss.

“I can’t hear anything... I don't hear it speak! Are you making this up?”

“I am not making this up. He said your necklace is shiny, that’s why he went up your leg. And that he’s sorry for hurting you.”

She furrowed her brows, frustrated that she couldn’t hear any of those words come from the snake. She looked down at her neck for the necklace, only to find she wasn't even wearing one! “You’re making this up! I can’t hear anything Tommy!”

“ _The girl… ssssshe’s yourss?_ ”

Tom turned to frown at Hermione, “I’m not. I swear! He’s talking to us right now!” He turned back to the snake, low hisses coming from his mouth smoothly, like a first language. Hermione strained her ears to understand the smooth hisses from Tom. “Hssssss-sass raahs, mhi-sssah resh-rhaaaa sha-ehssst.”  _Hermione is my best friend._

Tom stopped his response and watched the snake again as it whispered back.

“ _Your_   _bessst friend…do not let her fear the sssnakes, you are a sssnake too_.” The snake hissed ominously, and slithered out of their line of sight and back to wherever it came from.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry everyone, I realized I had accidentally skipped a chapter. But don't worry, I fixed the issue! Thank you, and I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Update: 3/6/15- minor edits in this chapter.

_August, 1933_

The whispers of the Second World War finally reached London’s ears and the year of 1933 was a rocky one. Germany had become public enemy number one to most of Europe, and with covert whispers of some sort of enslavement act toward Jews by Nazis, many businesses near Wool’s Orphanage either shut down or went bankrupt from loss of customers. The orphanage was the first of many government run businesses to show signs of financial stress during this time of depression. All funding went either into the war or to the government. Any "luxury items" such as soaps or textile were sent to the brave soldiers fighting at front.

Miss Cole, usually dependent on donations and money from the government to make ends meet for the boys and girls, now had to save in every way possible. In times of war such as these, no one thinks of anyone but themselves. Contributions seldom came, and with it less and less couples came by to adopt. Hermione’s days for wishing for a family of her own were long gone… much to Tom’s immense relief.

Where before their meals consisted of hearty stews with excellent spices for flavor, enriched in healthy nutrients for the growing children, now were lumpy soups entirely made of home grown potatoes and  _eggs._  Let Hermione be the first to mention that eggs are not meant to be put into liquid, no matter how many times Miss Cole has said otherwise. 

The soups were always bland, lumpy, and the powdered protein she’d put into it as a substitution of actual ingredients they could no longer afford smelled alot like Tom's socks after a day cleaning chimneys with the other boys.

If Hermione heard Tom’s stomach growl too many times throughout the day, she’d cut her meal rations of the stale bread and lumpy stew down the middle to give to him, despite her own growling stomach.

“You’re a growing nine year old  _boy_ , Tom,” she’d say. “You need it more than me.”

It didn’t stop him, however, to put the dry bread back onto her plate whenever she wasn’t looking.

All the children now bathed communally twice a week. The girls on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the boys on Tuesdays and Sundays, and inbetween they'd use wet rags and bath bowls. " _Like in those Jane Austen books you like so much, Miney._ " Tom would say to make her feel better. It didn't help at all. Not really.

Hot water was nonexistent, and soap was a luxury they could not take for granted. Tom tried everywhere he could to keep his best friend safe from the midieval living conditions, and in turn she did too.

In the few months they’d been living this way, Hermione grew ill from the flu many times. The quasi sanitary bathing conditions caused her immune system to flux day after day from the germs swirling around the grimy children's sweaty bodies.

Tom, during these times, would take extra care in hand picking whom would shower with Hermione on Mondays and Wednesdays. He didn’t want his friend getting sick, and wanted to make  _sure_  she wouldn’t bathe with anyone that would give her illness. He’d save his ration of soap, or an extra bar stolen from the pantries when Miss Cole wasn't looking, to give to Hermione for her showers.

It only took three weeks of this for Hermione to finally ignore the nasty looks of jealousy from the other girls.

Living in these poverties created a new chink in Tom’s overall uncaring demeanor. He grew up into a strong young man in those days of war, and he cared for his friend like a devoted guardian. Tom had taken to carrying out a clean handkerchief to wipe at his or Hermione’s faces if dust or grime would become too overbearing.

He’d read in a book, one that one of his old doctors had left behind in their haste to get away from him  _(the_   _overbearing bastard didn't even deserve his medical degree_ , in Tom's opinion _)_ , that this development of his was some form of neurosis. So many weeks watching Hermione grow sick, only to recover and then grow sick all over again, caused his already feeble control over his obsessive compulsion for her overall health to increase.

Miss Cole would find this development in Tom odd and disconcerting; he treated her like a pet, or, for lack of a better example, like a coddled baby. But if Miss Cole was being honest, Tom’s concern over her favorite orphan took a burden off her shoulders, and she could now better focus on the rest of the house’ tenants in peace. Hermione was one less child she had to worry about, if Tom continued caring for her the way he did.

Tom and Hermione no longer took their daily trips into the garden outside, because the dust would cause her allergies to act up, and Miss Cole could no longer afford medication other than just the basics. The friends they had made in the garden, mostly snakes that found their way to the young children, were impatient for their visits. So, they more often than not bumped into their slithery friends  _inside_  the house, coiled up inside the cupboards or hiding behind closed doors, whispering their hissed greetings for Tom to hear.

Because of the rumored danger surrounding Europe, Miss Cole had taken her children out of their schooling and tried keeping their studies up to date on her own. The duo had long ago finished reading through the entirety of the orphanages’ library, (and by  _library,_  it’s actually just a tiny cupboard with about sixty or so used books). So they made due with creating stories to tell each other.

That Wednesday afternoon, after a "fresh" shower, Hermione lay on Tom’s lumpy mattress. Her back was pressed against the cool brick wall and she stared sideways at her best friend.

He was sitting on the hard floor, balancing an unlit candlestick in midair with nothing but his mind.

“Maybe we’re just different.” Hermione whispered, staring at the floating candlestick. His little trick was nothing new. In fact, Tom had been able to levitate ever since that day they met their first snake friend so many years ago, and his power only grew stronger since he had broken his arm. At will, Tom could lift Hermione, the bed, and all the objects in his room at once without even breaking a sweat.

“We’re just special, Mi.” Tom rolled his eyes, “the other children have been fearing us since before all of this strangeness. It's  _them,_  the lot of them, that are different.”

“Maybe so, but nevertheless,  _we’re_  the odd ones. Mad even!” she sighed, sitting up on his bed. She squinted her eyes, her forehead turning pink with the pressure, and immediately the candle he held in mid air lit up brightly. The orange flame soared high up to the low ceiling and merrily bounced back down onto the wick.

“We’re not mad.” He whispered, glaring at the flame and trying to put it out. Hermione’s always been the better pyro than he.

Hermione giggled, “well, I know  _I’m_  not! But you’re the one that gave Dennis a swirly in the girl’s bathroom for simply looking at you!”

Tom groaned, “the jit had it coming! Just because he’s new around here doesn’t mean he can just ignore the rules. I was in the middle of reading. You know how I loathe people staring while I read.”

“And that toilet water to the face had nothing to do with the fact that you caught him playing with my red yo-yo that morning?”

"No." Tom’s eye twitched, his tell when he was uncomfortable or caught in a lie. She grinned triumphantly, pointing at his eye in excitement. 

“Stupid thing was broken anyways,” he mumbled.

“I told you!” She laughed, the summoned flames bouncing along with her every giggle, “you  _are_  mad! The poor guy was only playing with the pitiful toy… he hardly deserved to have his head dunked in toilet water for it!”

Tom rolled his eyes, “I’m no bully.”

"You're right. You're just an  _arse."_

"Shut up, you imbecile."

 _"You_  shut up, reptile brain!"

Tom didn't respond, only flicked his tattered story book at her telekinetically. She caught it mid-air and levitated it over the candle, smugly threatening to set it aflame.

Tom narrowed his eyes, "Don't you dare. You gave me that for my birthday."

"And I can un-give it to you just as easily. Just promise you won’t harass the new kids in my name and we'll leave all the name calling behind us.”      

“Well... I thought it was all rather romantic, anyway. Don’t you agree, Hermy?”

The ugly nickname had its desired effect, as he watched in glee as her face turned a funny shade of purple. She was about to respond by setting all his possessions on fire, when a sharp knock came to Tom’s door. Hermione stiffened and waved her hand to put out the candle’s flame. Tom immediately dropped the floating candle where it rolled away under the bed.

The door opened and an unknown man made his way inside. He was short and with a protruding belly full of fat, and his girth cause him to have to squeeze his way into the narrow room. A medical bag was in his hand, a black top hat in the other.

Miss Cole stayed behind in the hallways, watching the quiet boy and his only friend. Every other week a new doctor came to speak with Tom. Even with the diminished income, Miss Cole still found a way to have a psychologist cross-examine Tom’s unusual mind.

“Tom, hello, I’m Doctor Charles Montgomery, how are you today?” the new doctor greeted, staring him down and paying Hermione no attention. The man had an American accent and his lack of interest in Hermione irritated Tom for some reason. He felt personally offended that the doctors never took curiosity in his best friend the way they did to Tom, after all, Hermione was just as different as he was! Why didn’t  _she_  need any medical examination too.

“Fine.” Tom replied curtly, getting up so the doctor would not have any more height advantage over the young boy. As a nine year old he was rather tall, scraggly thin with combed-over wavy black hair that he styled to try and make him seem older than he actually was. The Doctor looked down at him curiously, already writing something down in his small notepad.

Dr. Montgomery finally turned his head from analyzing Tom to peer down at Hermione. “And  _you_  are?”

Hermione shot off the bed to hold her hand out to the new Doctor. “Hello sir,  _I_  am Hermione Granger.” The seven year old respectfully said. The doctor gave no response, only scribbling something down in his little notepad.

“Miss Granger is Tom’s only friend here at the orphanage.” Miss Cole said from the doorway, not meeting Tom or Hermione’s eyes as she stared at the Doctor’s back. “Doctor Hammond said something about codependency a few years ago, it doesn’t seem to have gone away…”

Doctor Montgomery smiled tersely, nodding along to Miss Cole’s words, without a reply.

“Hermione dear, why don’t you come help me in the kitchens while the doctor speaks with–”

“That won’t be necessary, Miss Cole,” said the doctor. “I’d like to have Hermione present during this session, with your permission, of course.”

Tom stiffened, and automatically took Hermione’s hand in his. Seems like his wish was granted, but now he wanted to take it back! He didn’t trust this man to pick his brain, and even less to pick Hermione’s.

His eyes narrowed at the Doctor in contemplation. He didn’t want this foul man speaking to his friend, tainting her mind with medical terminology. She was too young to be exposed to such folly, especially from the likes of this roly-poly.   

Tom gently pushed her to sit down on his unoccupied chair by his desk, then stood guard before it. Doctor Montgomery scribbled the action down on his notepad. Tom caught the words “ _control_ ” and “ _over_ - _protectiveness_ ” over his inaudible mumbles.

A few minutes later, the door clicked softly shut and Tom and Hermione were left alone with the Doctor.

“So, Tom. Tell me about–”

“Sir, with all due respect, I'd much rather we talk about why you want Hermione present for this interrogation instead?” Tom questioned, not allowing the doctor to get any advantage over him. He plastered his kindest smile on his face, one only put there when he wanted something done for him, but the man was not fazed. He met Tom’s false smile with a blank stare. Tom didn’t falter in his manipulation, even when he felt Hermione’s warning hand on his back.

“Okay…” the doctor began, addressing them both. “Miss Cole has informed me of your odd relationship, and she’s told me about how you don’t like it when Hermione’s been separated for too long from you. It's got me interested. Can you tell me why that is?”

Tom turned back to look at Hermione, silently asking a question that the doctor was not privy to. Tom must have found what he was looking for in Hermione’s eyes, because when he turned back to the doctor he was infinitesimally less guarded.

“Hermione’s my best friend. My only friend. If she were ever taken from me I would be very… unhappy.” Tom said in false sadness. The way Tom’s wording was phrased, so passive aggressively, sent a chill down the Doctor’s spine.

“I see, and Hermione… is Tom your only friend as well?”

Hermione’s hand, still placed on Tom’s back, clutched his gray sweater-vest lightly in her hand. “No. I’m friends with Amy and Dennis, and even Teresa. But I’d much rather be with Tom over them if I’d be given a choice. We both get foul when we're not near one another, I don’t like it much when Tom’s upset.”

“Foul?” the doctor asked.

Hermione glanced at Tom, upset as she watched his eye twitch. That was his impatient twitch. “Well… doctor, we both get upset.” She conceded. “My mood gets unbearable and all the other children just leave me alone until I find Tom again.”

“Hmm. I see. Tom, do you ever hurt Hermione if she leaves you to play with her other friends?”

Tom’s lips twisted so cruelly, Hermione almost thought the frown would permanently stick to his face.

“No!” Tom almost screamed. “I would never hurt Hermione. How can you–”

“It was just a simple question, young man.” The doctor said snippily, scratching out the words PSYCHIALLY ABUSIVE off of the checklist he kept to narrow down mental illness in his patients.

So far, Tom was portraying a strong sense of empowerment over Hermione, yet oddly enough the completely healthy girl expressed the same control over Tom. It was a codependency of the likes he’s never witnessed before, but Dr. Montgomery wondered how far their dual emotional power over each other would go, and if its evolved psychically, like it has with other patients he’s met with forms of the same relationships. They might have been too young, but orphans tend to mature faster than regular children.

“Hermione, sweetheart,” he noticed Tom’s bristling at the endearment for the young girl, “on a scale of 1 - 10 how kind do you believe Tom is to you?”

“A 10, doctor, of course!”

“And on the same scale… how kind is he to others?”

Hermione frowned, and glanced at Tom before answering honestly, “A-about a… well, a four?”

The rest of the allotted hour went much the same, the two children would hesitantly answer to the inquiring Doctor, until finally, Hermione let slip something huge that seemed to answer many of the doctor’s unasked questions.

“My head hurts when I’m not near Tom. And my breathing falls short if we’ve been away for too long. When we find each other again, it all goes away, and my glitter- um, my  _chest_  stops hurting.”

The Doctor’s consistent scribbling faltered as he glanced up at Tom and Hermione curiously. The children were barely into adolescence, yet they expressed such an advanced level of dependence only textbooks seemed to correctly detail. Maybe it was their situation in the orphanage. Such extreme circumstances, especially in this economy, had brought them together.

Miss Cole had informed him of Tom’s newly developed phobia of bacteria and sickness, stemmed from watching Hermione fall ill so many times throughout the year. It was normal, in a codependency, that one of the participants of such a relationship would take the other’s health into consideration before their own. With that definition in mind, it did not explain how both Hermione  _and_  Tom were as clean as whistles. All the other children he’d passed by to meet the two were dirty skinned and grimy, whereas these two had not a hair out of place, fairly clean, and somewhat healthy despite the situation.

The only logical explanation was that both Tom and Hermione were at an equal standing in their dependence for one another: they both mooched off the other’s welfare, they both had like-minded give and take for the other’s wellbeing… this rendered the theory that theirs was an Unhealthy Codependency void.

So it led Doctor Montgomery to two questions: why was Tom’s personality such an odd case to London’s psychologists? And why was the unusual partnership of these two so unsettling when witnessed?

In the entire hour that Tom and Hermione had been questioned by the doctor, the two did not part from their positions for even a moment. Their hands remained clasped, and the doctor figured their limbs must be numb from the stiff immobility. Tom stood rigidly against his desk as he allowed Hermione to sit on the chair, not once complaining about not having a place to sit, something that no other child their age would do.

He chalked up the perfect recommendation to separate this peculiar coupling. If he were to get Miss Cole to separate the two children, then they would grow out of their strange dependency and grow up normally.

“I see. That’s more than enough, girl.” The doctor frowned distractedly. He stood up, his joints creaking loudly in the silent room, and rudely left without another parting word.

“Did I say something wrong?!” Hermione cried out to Tom, unsettled by the vague departing words.

Tom furrowed his brows, angered by the doctor’s abrupt departure and rude dismissal after Hermione’s statement. Where was he going? Did he not see his sudden discharge left Hermione upset? He glanced down, glaring at his best friend’s frown and promising to himself that this was the last time any doctor would speak to him, let alone her.

He was so angry. If only this stupid doctor could forget ever meeting them! Then that way he won't run along and tattle to his other doctor friends or Miss Cole about what an anomaly he and Hermione were. If only this ugly, fat, stupid man could forget everything about them! This wasn't a co-dependency, this was a  _friendship!_ Tom's only friendship!

Tom sprinted out of his room, just in time to catch sight of Doctor Montgomery’s retreating back. Tom felt, rather than saw, his dark shadow suddenly release from his fingertips and rush at the doctor at mad speed. Before he knew what was happening, the cold black shadows gripped the older man’s head with long wispy talons, clawing their way in through his hair like a corporeal hand.

The doctor gave out a loud cry, as he fell to the ground on his knees, clutching his temple in pain. Tom’s eyes widened, watching as the fat old man cried out for Miss Cole to call for the hospital’s ambulance. Hermione ran out of the room at the sound of muffled screaming, she was frantic as she watched Tom’s black smoke retreat from the older man back into his own hands.

“Tom, Tom!” she whispered, tugging on his arm to get him to retreat back into his room as the man was helped up by Miss Cole and taken downstairs.

As Doctor Charles Mongomery was let out of the orphanage and herded into the cabbie, he stared down at his little notbook filled with notes from the day's visit, when suddenly he forgot ever meeting Tom Riddle and his friend Hermione or why he was even in a cab pulling away from the London Orphanage to begin with.

This was the very first time Tom Riddle ever erased another man's memory.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

_June 1937_

If it were any other day, young Hermione would preen at the gift of the bright, sunny morning.

The sun streamed in through her small dusty window, its rays beamed brightly and colored her dank bedroom gold. Her usually cold brick walls were warmed by the heat from the outside. The birds beyond her window sang. If she payed enough attention she'd be able to hear the other orphans laughing outside below her window. 

But her previous night was a horror show of terror. Her sleep was haunted by that look on his face. His wicked self-satisfisfaction... his grin- wrong and twisted _-_  unlike anything she'd ever seen. Monstrous.

His eyes glinted at her happily- a happiness only the Devil himself possessed- his gaze screamed, _look what I've done, Min. Isn't it brilliant?!_

His attempt to defend her honor, however, caused a friction between the friends so wicked, that the entire house paid the consequences of it for months to come. Today, this bright Summer day, marked the very first instance she began to fear Tom Riddle.

And it all happened because of a rabbit.

#

The previous day, Hermione threw open her wardrobe doors to pull on a clean dress, when out of the corner of her eyes she noticed Peter. 

Peter was Billy Stubb’s pet rabbit, stolen from the little gardens outside and hidden between the orphans as their smuggled communal pet. Peter was a scrappy little thing, the Billy had an unhealthy sort of attachment to the poor rodent. 

Hidden in a nest of her only two sweaters, a furry little rabbit huddled. 

“Hello, little fellow,” she greeted soothingly, bending over and slowly reaching forward to capture the elusive animal.

She willed it to stay still. Yet, either due to malnutrition or just poor character, the little thing barely spared her a glance as she hunched down to peer at it.

A few years ago, Hermione had discovered that she and Tom both had the curious ability to make the animals around them do certain things. With nothing but a few simple looks or murmured words, the smallest of mice to the fattest of pigeons could run, chirp, or do wherever they'd ask of it. She’d been utilizing that ability to try to find Billy's lost rabbit Peter.

Billy had been looking for Peter for weeks, as usual blaming Tom for the animal’s mysterious disappearance. He had been on the warpath for weeks, terrorizing the smaller children and cornering them in the halls for intel on his missing pet, shooting glares Tom’s way when he thought no one was looking.  But she knew better, Tom hated the furry animals, especially one as weak and unhealthy as Peter, and he almost scorned his ability to understand them.

 _Tom would never touch this cute little thing_ , she thought as she watched the little rabbit's ears twitch. He’d claim it was a female’s company the rabbit thrived from. The git.

“Come here, Peter,” she cooed, and with the simple command the rabbit inched its way closer, hopping unsteadily over a pile of her stockings to jump into her open palms.

“Good, little fur ball.” She pet Peter over his long ears, delighting in the soft matted fur.

For all the annoyance Billy caused her and Tom throughout the years, his one redemption was this little creature.

Hermione, with Peter tucked securely into the crook of her arm, walked briskly down the hall toward Billy’s room to return the pet. Before she could reach the end of the hall, however, she was yanked to the side and hauled into an unused closet.

“Ah!” she cried, as the door to the broom closet was shut and she and her perpetrator were encased in darkness.

She heard a familiar soft chuckle reverberate though the small room eerily. 

"Tom!” Hermione hissed. Her best friend’s face was revealed to her the instant he flicked the overhead light bulb on.

At 10 years old, Tom still hadn’t grown out of his baby face, not that she could say different about herself. His dark eyes, twinkling in mirth at her agitation, looked black in the shadows of the closet. His jet black hair looked nothing less than wavy ink. Tom would make a handsome young man someday.

"Hermione!" he hissed back in a falsetto. "What are you up to, prat?"

She ignored the insult and revealed the little fur ball, shaking against her chest as she kept it partially hidden from view. “I’ve found Peter. He was hiding in my wardrobe. Poor thing... he’s probably hungry. Billy’s been looking for him for weeks.”

Tom sneered and leaned away from the animal as far as he could in the tiny room. “That thing is riddled with disease, Mi. _Why_ are you touching it? You know how easily you get sick–”

“Oh, shut up, you!” she huffed, “it’s been months since I've last so much as _sneezed_ , you know that. Holding the rabbit will hardly get me ill. Besides, he’s so soft! Want to hold him?” she asked, offering up the little creature to Tom with outstretched arms.

He swatted her away with a sneer, “get that filthy thing away from me. It stinks.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and clutched the shaking rabbit closer to her as if it would help keep it from catching on fire from Tom’s glare. “Why did you kidnap me in here anyways?”

“I heard Miss Cole muttering something about a ‘special guest’ today. Seems like the old hag has finally got herself a male _friend_.”

“Eww.” Hermione scrunched up her nose in disgust. She was an innocent girl by every sense of the word- never uttered a curse word, never strayed from the path Miss Cole says 'The Lord' has chosen for them... but being best friends with a _boy_ , a boy like Tom of all people, made Hermione privy to a few perverse things most young girls in their society are warned away from.

The very image of their stout matron enjoying ‘male company’ was enough to make her stomach roll. _Thanks, Tom._

“He'll be here by supper most likely. The whore–”

“–Tom!” she chided.

“–I mean, _Miss_ _Cole_ said she wanted all the hostages to go to bed early after dinner so she could enjoy her company. Anyway, what do you feel like doing toda–”

“Look!” she shrieked excitedly, ignoring Tom’s cynical use of the term “hostages” referring to themselves and the other orphans, as she pointed at a dark corner of the closet.

“ _Hello._ ” The brown spotted snake hissed quietly, audible only to Tom’s ears. Tom crouched down to respond, too quietly for her to hear (not that she’d understand anyways), and picked up the new slithery friend.

“Tell him I say ‘hello’.” Hermione demanded, unaware of the rabbit’s fearful eyes on the red serpent.

"She says hello as well.” Tom corrected, holding up the long reptile around his neck. It coiled dangerously tight around his shoulders, she noted, but it didn’t seem to bother or hurt Tom at all. The snake’s eyes were an eerie red, it seemed to gleam mysteriously in the soft glow from the dingy light bulb swinging above them.

Throughout the years, Tom and Hermione had read a few books about snakes, so the markings along the serpent’s body signaled that this one was indeed poisonous. However, years of experiencing Tom’s strange uncanny over them did not leave her afraid of it.

She nearly forgot she was holding the predator’s perfect prey, so she juggled Peter into the crook of one arm, the other outstretched to pet the smooth scales of the snake’s head. They didn’t notice the snake hungrily eyeing the rabbit in her arm.

“What’s her name? We’ve never seen her before.”

Tom hummed at her in agreement, and lowly hissed to the scaly creature. “She said her name is _Sser-haass._ ”

“Ssa-rasss,” she attempted to repeat. Around Tom’s neck, the snake visibly shook her head. Neither of them noticed the frightened rabbit stiffen.

He chuckled fondly at her pitiful effort, but did not correct Hermione’s butchering of the snake’s name. “Think of it almost like ‘Sarah’.”

“Oh!” She grinned, “hello, S – AHHH!” Hermione screamed, she clutched her neck in pain and doubled over, her head bumping against Tom’s stomach as she gripped his upper arm to level herself. Simultaneously, she dropped the rabbit to the ground, where it scampered off through the crack in the doorway.

Tom hissed something frantically to the snake, and dutifully, it uncoiled from Tom’s neck and slithered back into the darkness.

“Hermione, let me see!” Tom wretched her hand away from the wound, uncovering it to watch in mild fascination as the blood dripped from two small holes in her neck where the rabbit bit her, only an inch shy from her jugular vein. Quickly, he whipped out his ever present handkerchief to press against her bleeding wound. The white tissue immediately bloomed an alarming shade of red.

“It stings!” Hermione whimpered, holding the cloth to the deep punctures.

He peeled back the dampened cloth to look at the wound, it wasn’t superficial like he'd hoped. The deep bite punctured through her skin, puckering the area around it, her pale neck was scarlet, the two deep holes were torn.

What the bloody hell had gotten into that filthy rabbit!

Tom ran out of the room, only to run straight into the fat belly belonging to Billy, looming by their closet door like a ghost, much to his immediate unreasonable suspicion. Pushing him out of the way, Tom grabbed Hermione by the arm and ushered her out of the room. 

" I’ll deal with  _you_  later,” he  threatened ominously, much to Billy’s confusion.  


Judging by the rapidly cooling air swirling around Tom and the black shadow-like steam rising from his skin, Tom was very, very angry.

The lights overhead flickered as they walked away.

#

“What has happened now!?” Miss Cole cried out when the pair appeared in the kitchen. She took hold of Hermione gently by the shoulders and peeled away the blood sodden handkerchief from her neck. She hissed at the puncture wounds on the little girl’s neck. “Come, darling. Let’s rinse this out with clean water lest you get an infection.”

Hermione didn't have to see, but she knew Tom’s eye was most likely twitching upon hearing the word _infection._

“Tom,” she muttered, holding out her hand for him to take and follow them into the bathroom. Before Miss Cole could say a word, Tom ground his teeth and took Hermione’s offered hand. He followed the two women into the bathroom, regardless of the matron’s sputtering reaction.

“Honestly, Mr. Riddle, it is unbecoming of a young boy to be dallying with women in the ladies’ washroom. Hermione will be fine if you would just wait outside–”

Tom silently shot Miss Cole a withering glare, pushed past her long skirts to help Hermione sit on top of the closed toilet lid, and quickly helped her wash away the blood pooling lightly around the dip on her collarbone.   

Ignoring Tom’s insolence for the time being, Miss Cole reached up to the bathroom’s cabinetry and grabbed sifted through the few first aide bottles she had on hand. Ever since the slight economic dip, she had needed to practice in the art of frugality, otherwise the orphanage would be shut down and the kids without a home. She had nothing in her cubbard to treat a wound. Bleeding cuts could go fine with a simple bandage but this required medicine she didn't think she had... 

She lowly shushed Hermione’s whimpering as the moistened gauze rubbed along her skin- she had no ointment to treat the wound. She did her best to keep her comments to herself as she eyed Tom’s hand, familiarly cupping the young girl’s shoulder.

The tight-knit relationship between the two had never been of much consequence to Miss Cole. In fact, she felt like her prayers were answered when her personal Nightmare made a friend out of the new girl all those years ago. But thinking back on it now, seeing how much the strange friendship has progressed, she wondered if she shouldn’t have ignored her values. It was improper for a girl of Hermione’s age- especially one so close to the cusp of womanhood- to spend so much time around a male friend.

“Who’s done this?” She demanded after she’d finished applying a bandage to the girl’s neck. She noted the silent communication between the boy and girl.

Tom turned to her uninterested, “Stubb’s disgusting pet rabbit was found in Hermione’s wardrobe this morning–”

“–Peter must have been frightened, the poor thing. He bit me and ran off.”

“I see.” Miss Cole said sharply. She was unaware that Billy had been keeping pets inside the house. “And where is Billy and _Peter_ now?”

“I don’t know, Miss Cole. _We_ are not Billy’s keepers. Come along, Hermione. Let’s get you something to drink.” Tom responded, gingerly helping her off the toilet seat and out of the kitchen’s adjoining bathroom. Miss Cole watched the boy’s usually blank stare morph into emotion.

His mouth was pressed in a firm scowl, his eyes lingered on Hermione’s neck and he stared into space with a calculating eye.

A small shiver ran down the matron’s back at the boy’s peculiarity.

#

“At the Church, it’s usually rather quiet.” John smiled teasingly at her over the candlelight between them. "Father Michael and the other pastors haven't had another _incident_ in a long while. It's dirty work, but I like to think I help make the world a better place, one exorcism at a time."

Miss Cole kept a small smile on her face, horrified by the man’s tales of exorcisms and brutality on a day-to-day basis at his job at the London Church. John had been an old friend from grade school she ran into a few weeks prior. She was almost affronted by his lack in decorum in asking her on a ‘date,’ but as it has been so many years since her last one, she humored the man anyway.

The lights around them were dim, and all the children were sound asleep already. The candlelight and soft glow of the lights above them set a mood much too romantic considering her present company.

The dinner was a bit finer than she cared for, John had bought and delivered it all himself, and she felt increasingly guilty eating the seasoned roasted duck and steamed rice while her orphans ate nothing but lukewarm stew every day. She swore she would reuse any leftovers for the children as soon as this man had left for good- she didn’t fancy a second date.

“Sounds… dangerous.” Miss Cole replied, opting to not be rude and shutting down the horrid conversation completely, yet not encouraging him either. He seemed to take the distance as mysterious.

“Mitch's the real master of it. He’s always… say, what is that?” John asked, breaking off what would have been a new tangent about the amazement that was his job. She turned in her seat to look where he was pointing. From her spot at the dining table, she had a clear view into the building’s large entrance hall. The stairs were just beyond the foyer, and in the darkness of the night she could vaguely see a shape moving around above them on the stair’s railings.

“Hm. Strange, these boys and girls are always in bed at curfew.”

She got up to inspect whom the rule breaker tonight was, only to come to stiffle a scream.

Right before her was the sight of a twitching animal, dangling dangerously in the air with a thin wire around its neck. A crude, makeshift noose attached to the animal’s neck suspended it off the wooden beam on the ceiling above them. The jerking animal gave out imperceptible shrieks and desperate little convulsions as his little paws tried to find purchase to remove the tight, wire noose around its neck.

“What in the _hells_!” she screamed. Watching the rabbit above her head twitch dramatically as it fought for its life.

“What the bloody fuck? What type of orphanage are you running here, Annie?” John shouted, reaching up the grab the animal before it died. But almost as if by magic, or maybe her aging eyes were already failing her, the wire shortened itself, hurling the rabbit higher up above them, too far up to reach. It's short shrieks grew to painful wails as it swayed in the air.

She opened her mouth to yell for a ladder, but Miss Cole watched in silenced horror as the small animal gave out a lone little cry, and stilled completely in its death.

Ignoring the presence of the man beside her, she ran toward the tiny little intercom by the front door. 

“ALL BOYS AND GIRLS REPORT TO THE FOYER…  _IMMEDIATELY_ !”  she screamed from the top of her lungs, awaking every boy and girl in the building as the loudspeakers placed around the house blared her rage.

She glared at the animal swinging above her head as if the very thing could come back to life and point out the perpetrator... one she already had an inkling as to whom it was. The man beside her stood silent, a glare on his own face she did not bother wiping away.

Minutes ticked by and soon the front room was crowded with the bodies of over fifteen boys and girls, all of them unaware of the death hanging over her heads quite literally. Billy Stubbs was one of the last to enter.

She crooked a long finger at the boy, “Billy. Come here.” The children snickered as he blundered over to her gracelessly.

Billy walked over to her, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Yes, Miss Cole?”

“Is this your rabbit?” she asked pointing to the air above her. All around her several muffled gasps of shock rang through the air.

Billy’s eyes widened, his face paled. 

“P-peter,” he whispered, crying out loudly as his arms stretched up high as if to grab at it. “Peter!” he cried again. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, he didn’t mean to! It was an accident!” Billy cried, what he was apologizing for, however, proved Miss Cole’s suspicions correct.

“Do you know who did this?” Miss Cole demanded. By the placement of the rope on the high beam, it seemed to be impossible to have been tied without the use of a ladder, but she knew long ago that the words ‘impossible’ did not exist for _one_ little boy all the other children seemed to stay away from. All the years of not understanding all the silly little reasons as to why all the kids seemed to be adverse to Tom Riddle added up in her mind’s eye. _This_ occurrence, no matter how impossible, seemed to have been done by one person only.

Billy remained quiet in his grief, silent tears ran down his round face as he stared up at his still-swinging dead pet.

Miss Cole looked up, straight into the cold eyes of Mr. Riddle.

Her expression hardened at the sight of Hermione, Riddle's ever present shadow, sitting only two steps above him with her fingers curled around his collar.  

“Tom Riddle, go wait for me in my office. All other children, back to bed!” She ordered, ignoring the furious look on Tom’s face.

Simultaneously, all the children swiveled their heads to stare at Tom, coming to the understanding that this was somehow his doing. 

Miss Cole had almost forgotten John’s presence until he cleared his throat. “Should I take my leave?”

“No.” Miss Cole stated firmly. “You may be of use at the moment.”

Miss Cole waited with thinning patience as Tom whispered to Hermione, encouraging her up the stairs as he made his way down.

Tom did not stop before her as expected. He wordlessly pushed past her in defiance, disappearing through her office door.

Wordlessly, she led John into her office. Flicking the light on, she noted Tom was already sitting down at the chair in front of her desk. His fingers were intertwined on his chest as he slumped in the chair, his bare feet planted on the cold hardwood. 

She ushered John in and almost slammed the door behind them shut.

“Considering what we stumbled upon tonight… you’ll have to first understand my reasoning for singling this boy here, John. I believe I should give you some background information.”

Miss Cole reached into her filing cabinet, where she kept all the forms, certificates, and papers belonging to each child. She liked keeping neat records of whom had visited whom, prospective adopters. Any misdemeanors or teacher’s notes from the children’s schooling days, etc., were all tucked away into each child’s individual packet.

Tom’s record was slim. There was absolutely nothing out of the norm in his archives, the only sheets of paper inside consisted of his birth certificates, a few doctor’s notes – each expressing some degree of concern over his mental and emotional health, and his awards for his academic success.

Miss Cole remembered reading somewhere that the _worst_ of psychopaths where the one’s _least_ expected. Like Tom and his perfect file.

She began to inform John about Tom.

He was a straight ‘A’ student at the primary school he attended before the rumors of war had forced her to take the children out for safety reasons. She told John all about Tom’s harmless reading habits, his tenancy to always understand anything and everything, and mastering even the most advanced of novels before the day is over. She even told him of his little habit in pushing aside his daily chores until the very last minute, and his uncanny ability to complete the them to perfection at the very last minute and yet still have time to spare.

She also told John, much to the immediate rage of the boy that had otherwise been sitting silently, all about Hermione.        

"She just showed up one night, out of the blue. It was Tom, only three years old at the time, that had found her body tucked in a blanket right in front of our gate the next morning. Miracle she didn’t freeze to death… miracle it was." she shook herself out of the memory, the fear that gripped her when she noticed the abandoned baby. "Tom had always been a lonesome boy, keeping to himself mostly, and ignoring all others. Quiet boy. But that morning, I watched him with my own eyes as he stood up from his seat by the tree, zoned in on the little child across the yard, and waddled over to her. Poked her in the cheek with a hesitant finger, he did. But then I watched him as he tucked her in further into her blankets… right there through the bars of the gates, he just reached out and pet her like a little sleeping kitten. Isn’t that right, Tom?” She asked, knowing full well he mustn't have had the memory, he was barely a toddler himself then.

Tom ignored her, now digging his fingernails into the wooden armrests of the chair, his expression neither accommodating nor aggressive.

“This is all very nice and all, Annie… but what does this have to do with the dead rabbit?”

Then… Miss Cole told John of the _other_ things about Tom. The flickering lights, the way the other kids call him a ‘freak’ when they think Miss Cole isn’t listening, the whispering one-sided conversations he holds in the dead of night when she checks on the children to make sure they’re sound asleep as they should be.

The more and more she spoke of Tom and his oddities, the more John seemed to straighten, square his shoulders and stare at Tom with new insight.

Finally, she informed him of his uncanny level of possession for his only friend: the little girl he found on the sidewalk.

"Earlier today, Miss Granger was bitten in the neck by that rabbit. Tom was notably upset. You now know of Tom’s history and relationship with the young girl, so you understand why I have called him into my office regarding the crime.” She gave her testimony, watching Tom glare coldly between her and John.

“Yes, I see.” John frowned. “And you have me here because–”

“Because you have experience in dealing with the Devil and his work. I want you to tell Tom what it is you do at the Church you work for, so he knows exactly what can happen if he doesn't control himself.”

John, whom had been leaning against Miss Cole’s metal filing cabinet, stood up straighter. The squeak of his boots on the hardwood floor were loud, and the only other sound was Tom’s sudden panicked breathing.

"I'll leave you two alone." Miss Cole slipped out of the room without another word, the door shutting behind her with a soft, definitive click.

John squatted down in front of Tom on his haunches, letting his eyes bore into the young boy’s. “You got the devil in you, boy? Huh?”

Tom glared resentfully, but didn’t answer the man. Inside, his mind raced with possibilities on how he could get out of this the eventual beating this random bloke was probably going to give him, without revealing his special abilities.

"God doesn't plan for demons to possess children," the nutter continued much to his annoyance. "But it happens. Excorsisms take time. Usually painless... sometimes not..."

Tom ignored the buffoon and let him continue talking.

His anger to avenge Hermione, his fear of her falling ill from that rabid animal, and the little mutilated spot of skin she’ll have to look at for the rest of her life, caused him to act blindly. His neat little trick in levitating the animal from the rafters was a brilliant idea, and he was glad he had the presence of mind to hide Miss Cole’s ladder beforehand so she wouldn’t remove it. That disgusting excuse of an animal will be rotting for days until the idiot woman eventually realizes she will need to _borrow_ a ladder from someone else.

But now, looking up at this older man, he realized maybe his plan should have been held off by a day or two…

Suddenly, John clamped a large hand around Tom’s lanky arm. He forcefully shoved Tom closer to his face and the air between them swirled from the stink of his coffee'd breath. The chair below Tom tipped backward from the sudden movement and it clanked away loudly in the small room.

Sprouting from seeimly thin air, John swiftly lifted a small wooden cross in the air, poising to strike at Tom's face with it.

Yet, Tom didn’t cringe, merely glared angrily at the pitiful symbol for a diety he didn't care for.

John wasn’t actually going to _hit_ him with it, Tom assumed. He just wanted to strike the fear of God into Tom (or so he hoped). But Tom’s look of fearlessness in the face of danger made the man pause long enough for Tom to wriggle out of his grip and put enough space between the two in the room.

What are you going to do, John? Hit a young boy? Don’t think that’s very noble for… how did you say? Someone who helps make the world a better place?” Tom taunted, his almost-whisper caused the man to narrow his eyes and crack his knuckles.

"I'll be back, demon,"John snarled, shoving Tom back down into the chair and walking out of the office.

Tom curled his lip with anticipation.


	6. Chapter 6

_August, 1937_

The orphans were never as dreadfully unobservant as Hermione and Tom assumed them to be.

With the days following The Incident, most of the children quaked with trepidation behind the chilling silence hovering around their shoulders.

If Tom’s own best friend, only friend for that matter, couldn’t seem to have believed his innocence against killing, no, _maiming_ an innocent pet rabbit… What hope do the other children have in ever seeing Tom as anything less than a monster?

It started out with a temperature spike. A sudden, unexplainable coldness caused the hairs on the children’s neck to stand on end whenever Hermione walked away if Tom entered a room. Anyone with the misfortune in standing a bit too close to the Riddle boy seemed to find their breath fog up and an icy shudder inexplicably creep up their spines.  

The children agreed that Tom was only one half of an equation without Hermione. Unwhole and always a little bit off without the bushy haired genius to translate his glares and unmatched wit for the rest of the room to understand. Without Hermione he’d become a bit strange, a little bit less than normal- less than human.

It was evening time, a few months after the death of Billy Stubb’s rabbit, and the entire house was converged into the dining hall for supper.

The food was a bit better today. Thick, steamed carrots and plump, juicy peas lined the bottom of the seasoned chicken broth. The enthusiastic clinking of spoons against ceramic bowls gave Hermione a sense of anticipation. She was sitting at the furthest end of the table, too unsettled by the dark eyes fixated on her to eat.

A swarm of cold shadows floated at her elbow, drifting its way from across the room to encircle her. Dark fearsome talons clawed at her skin and hair- insistent and playful, feeling nothing less than a familiar brush of friendly hands, begging her to acknowledge it. The persistent fog was so thick she could barely see her own hands.

 _Stop it_. She willed. The oppressing black smoke immediately shifted for her comfort.

She didn’t dare look up at Tom.

“Getting a bit chilly in here isn’t it?” Said Miss Cole from beside Hermione where she could see Tom’s inky smoke drift over the matron’s head.

“Yes, Miss Cole.” A few of the orphans replied in unison.

“Winter must be setting in a bit early. August can’t be over quicker, I think. Billy, child, why don’t you toss another log into the fire?”

“Yes, Miss Cole.” Billy mumbled, pushing his chair back causing it to scratch loudly against the wooden floor. Hermione cringed.

“So, dear.” Hermione didn’t have to look to see the scornful sneer on Billy’s lips and the accompanying glare Tom tossed to him. “I’ve received a telegraph today. You will have a visitor by the end of the week.” Miss Cole prayed the last part into her stew.

“She’s to have a visitor?” Tom asked, causing the few orphans sitting around him to drop their spoons in surprise. Hermione looked up.

The skin beneath his eyes were dark, as if he hadn’t been sleeping yet his hair was impeccably combed to the side- fresh and clean. Meticulously combed to give the sense of refinement.

She knew that trick of his- he posed well and groomed but inside he was a mess. She can sense it in the desperate way the black fog swirled around her and curled into her hair, begging to be recognized.

It broke her heart- but not enough to stop being mad at him.

Tom looked at her as she spoke and his eyes zeroed in on her toying with the deep scar on her neck.

She’ll have a thick scar the size of her thumb nail the rest of her life.

“May I ask whom?” Hermione asked, looking back down and ignoring the way the smoke around her caressed at the bandage at her neck like ghostly fingers. As if trying to erase the slowly scarring mark from existence.

“Is it another exorcist for Tom?” one of the older girls asked loudly and many laughed in response.

Miss Cole gasped. “Children!” she snapped. “I will not tolerate insubordination in this house!” She slammed a dainty fish onto the wooden table. Hermione’s plates rattled with the action. “Am I clear?” The children settled down. “No sweetheart, a prospective adopter, I assume. He asked for you specifically.”

There was a clang at the end of the table and several young children gasped in surprise as Tom flew out of his chair until it fell back with a clang.

He stood at the end, eyes wild and shoulders tensed, glaring at everything and nothing. Before his eyes finally fell onto Hermione in betrayal.

Miss Cole glared down at him shrewdly. “Tom Riddle. Sit. Down.” She commanded, her voice booming.

The children around the table whispered. Billy glared at Tom with hatred in his eyes but his hands shook like a leaf in fear. Their voices carried in waves until there was nothing but an excited crescendo ringing in her ears as the smoke threatened to force itself into her chest and grab hold of what little resistance against him she had left.

The shadows around her reached up and circled her head, clawing at her dress and hair, a frightful scene for their eyes only.

“Tom. Stop it.” Hermione whispered. The shadows ceased immediately, properly scolded for once, and retreated back into Tom’s small form.

Tom sat back down at her command with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. Those were her first words to him in five days.

“Good.” Miss Cole said, assuming Tom had listened to her rather than Hermione.

Hermione excused herself and went to bed without finishing her supper.

#

At the end of the week she did have a new visitor.

He was a strange man. Tall, and thin, with a bushy auburn beard that depicted personal laziness in regards to his hygiene rather than any sort of fashion statement.

Albus Dumbledore, Hermione surmised upon first meeting him, was a wizard. Like the ones from her Hobbit books, he was all long limbs and pointy ears and a crooked nose. Long fingers and twinkling eyes.

He was clean, smelled like lemons and smiled brilliantly and without a care or worry. He spoke like a rich man, an educated man. He had manners. He didn’t talk down to her like a nine year old- but treated her with upmost respect and care- as if she were royalty or _important_.

But she wasn’t. She was an orphan- and for the first time in a very long time she wanted to be adopted. By him. The wizard-man with the bright blue suit that smelled of lemons.

But this man was no wizard. Though he laughed loudly and freely, the twinkle in his eye gleaming, when she’d asked him outright.

Albus Dumbledore, as Miss Cole had assumed, wasn’t there to adopt. He was in London on a “personal endeavor” and he’d heard rumor that one of the smartest young girls in their time lived right there in Wool’s Orphanage!

Hermione tried not to blush at the heavy compliment. Or the fact that she was only smart because she had Tom to teach her everything in the world.

“You’re a very special young lady, Miss Granger.” The man smiled, getting up from his chair to leave. He turned around quickly, as if forgetting something.

“Care for a simple magic trick, young Hermione?” He asked with a secret wink. Hermione smiled wide, eyes alight with excitement. She and Tom knew all about magic tricks.

Mr. Dumbledore picked out a sickle from his pants suit and showed it to her. “Now. Keep your eyes on it dear, don’t let it go.” He displayed the sickle with a flourish, exposing his empty hands all for the small circular coin. “Don’t look away. Don’t blink.”

Hermione stared. Stared hard and long until her eyes pricked and dried and she was forced to blink without meaning to.

But when she opened her eyes, the silver coin had transformed into a beautiful blue butterfly.

Hermione gasped as the butterfly flapped its wings and fluttered towards her. Something within her grew, beginning in her chest and blossoming to the tips of her fingers.

Without meaning to, her glitter rushed out and caressed the floating insect. She watched enraptured as the butterfly seemed to dance along with the shimmering waves emanating from her own hands.

Hermione, however, didn’t notice that Albus Dumbledore’s eyes were trained fixedly on the swirling glow emanating around her person. The shimmering, swimming, golden glitter that had been present and a part of her all her life was the focus of his attention and deep approval.

Albus bade his goodbyes after their brief meeting with the promise that he would see her again someday, when the time was right.

#

“What did he want?” He whispered from his open bedroom. The halls were dark and quiet, the lights had been shut off for the evening to conserve electricity and save on the monthly expense.

Hermione didn’t need the light, never has since the illuminated shimmer floating from her fingertips hadn’t stopped since Mr. Dumbledore had left hours ago.

But she jumped, not anticipating his door to be open as she’d walked past.

She turned her heel, facing Tom and deciding to finally begin speaking with him after the rabbit incident. She had missed him, she pondered as she chewed her lip. She’d been colder than usual lately, only ever warm when, of all ironies, she’s surrounded by the comforting smoke that exudes from him.

“Just, um,” she stuttered, unsure how to act around him anymore. Her best friend- the rabbit killer. “He wanted to meet me.” She shifted forward, her uncapped glitter gravitating toward the swirling darkness caged in Tom’s room. Her feet took her closer without her permission.

Tom smiled charmingly but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course he did. You’re special.”

Hermione blushed, unused to such compliments.

“Minny.” He mumbled, eyes shifting to the floor where the black smoke pooled at their feet. “Can we be friends again?”  

Without thinking Hermione bounded the three steps toward him until she collapsed into his shocked embrace.

“I missed you, Tom! You’re my very best friend!”

“You didn’t speak to me for two months.” He mumbled around the bush of wiry, tangled hair.

“You killed Billy’s pet, Tom!” Hermione admonished, pulling away but keeping her hands locked onto his thin, bony shoulders.

Tom didn’t focus on her face, looking past it as he spoke. “That animal hurt you. I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Hermione stayed uncharacteristically quiet with nothing to say to that.

“You got hurt too, you know.” She said finally after they’d settled on his mattress and once more began their usual game of Balance the Flame. “The children, Tom. They’re deathly afraid of you.”

Tom snorted and smiled at her, his eyes crinkling in mirth. “Let them. I only need your friendship. Those other kids are idiots.”

She swatted the small flame playfully toward him making him scramble backward quickly so as not to get burnt.

Hermione giggled into her hand and silently thanked Dumbledore for unknowingly giving her the courage to face her best friend and forgive him for his bad deeds.

#

_January, 1938_

“Hermione!” Tom growled the day of his 11th birthday. “Hermione, sod off! I’m trying to sleep!”

“It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday!” She giggled, jumping on his creaking bed in excitement. The early morning sun was just beginning to break through January’s usual grey clouds. It was winter still and the bed of snow was thick enough to get lost in this year. But she was bundled warmly in the cocoon of his ever-present smoke- like an invisible blanket only they can see and feel.

“Your feet are stepping on my fingers, girl.” He growled, grabbing onto her ankle until his blunt fingernails threatened to claw at the sensitive skin.

“Let go, bugger!” She snapped, borrowing one of his new favorite terms.

Tom’s vocabulary had stretched in the past months leading up to his 11th birthday. Wanker. Bollocks. Prat. And when Tom learns something new, Hermione is always there to play student.

“Get out. I mean it.” He rumbled. Letting go of her leg and turning over, using his thin pillow to protect his face from the rising sun through the small window on his left.

“But I’ve got you a gift!” And that got his attention. He stilled, shoulders tensing and if it weren’t for the black smoke swirling excitedly, she’d assume he was angry.

He slowly removed the pillow from his head and turned up to look at her staring down at him smugly. Hermione was wearing a skirt, he could see up the cotton to her white knickers- but children had no sensibilities for such things. He paid it no mind nor care.

What did you get me?” He couldn’t help the question from rushing out excitedly. Tom sat up against the hard wall, taking off his blankets until they pooled at Hermione’s toes.

She fell onto his mattress into a sitting position, bouncing a few times from the landing. She reached under the bed and presented a brown package, meticulously wrapped with an obsessive compulsion only Hermione had.

“How did you buy this?” he asked confused. Already assuming it was some sort of book judging from the size and shape.

She rolled her eyes, a blush coloring her entire face as she stuttered. “T-that doesn’t matter. What matters is I wasn’t caught-”

“You nicked it?!” Tom shouted, eyes wide in shock. His jaw fell open as he looked down at the stolen present with newfound respect.

“I didn’t nick it!” She defended. “I borrowed it… permanently...” Tom continued to look aghast, as if such a thought could never have occurred to his goody two shoed friend. She rolled her eyes, reaching back for the gift. “If you don’t want it-”

“No!” he nearly shouted again, caging the brown package protectively over his chest. He looked down, a small smile gracing his face.

“Go on then. Open it!”

He tore at the paper like a madman, most likely giving himself one or two paper cuts in the process. He tossed away the thick wrapping onto the floor to reveal-

“A diary?” he stared down at the black leather book in confusion- as if someone’s just asked him a rather difficult calculus question. “You got me _a bloody_ _diary_?” he looked back up at her at her annoyed.

“It’s not a diary!” she defended, taking the smooth book from his hands and caressing the dark supple leather protectively. She looked back down at the words _Diary_ etched in tasteful golden font over the cover. “Okay, it’s a diary. But you don’t have to write your feelings in it or anything. I got it for a reason.”

“And what reason’s that?” he asked, mouth turned down in a grimace as he plucked it back from her hands between two of his fingers. He held it away from him as if diseased.

Hermione smiled, charmed by his complete and utter ability to act like such a _boy_.

“The leather reminded me of your smoke.” She said simply, caressing the smooth material as he held it up. The book seemed newly bound, but the leather must have been bent and whipped for years- the hide was softer than a cloud, each fibril shaped to the print of her fingers. It was like running your hands over the top of water.

She rubbed the book as his smoke caressed against the nape of her neck and the simultaneous feelings were uncanny in their similarity.

“ _This_ is what the smoke feels like to you?” he asked, running a fingertip along each decorative gold clasp to the other; that confused math expression still on his face. “You feel _this_? I don’t feel anything! How do you feel this?”

Hermione caressed the diary, unable to articulate her thoughts with her nine year old vocabulary. She shrugged.

“You don’t feel mine?” she asked after a moment of silence fell upon them as he inspected the book with newfound interest.

He looked up. “You never let yours out. I don’t remember anymore.” He was a rotten liar and a tricky little boy. He smirked, caught in his plan to have her let loose the glitter she’s always so fussy about keeping at bay.

Because it was his birthday, and she was rather curious what the little sparkles felt like to him, she searched deep within that cold place inside her chest until a familiar flutter ran along her arms. Her fingertips tingled and when she opened her eyes the familiar golden swirls were swimming in the air around them, bouncing up like microscopic entities with a life of their own, mingling with the smoke that had cocooned around them both.

Tom reached a hand up and, without her conscience control, a long line of golden sparks flew around his fingertips and wove between each digit, dancing along his arm and into the short sleeves of his grey shirt to burrow inside.

“It tickles.” He snickered, patting at his chest where the line of glitter disappeared into. Little bursts of light tapped against the side of his neck and he shrugged his head to the side to staunch the tingling.

Hermione raised a hand to feel as a separate line of shimmer instantly swirled around her hands, close to her skin but never touching. She didn’t feel anything at all. No tickle, no tap, nothing. She swatted at the air and the glitter immediately parted for her, never touching its owner.

Her brows furrowed in frustration, but before she could express her annoyance, a wisp of Tom’s smoke, a tendril of inky black darkness stretched out toward her like a hand, caressing her from her fingertips and down to her elbow. Tom stopped, watching in fascination.

Hermione didn’t suppress the shiver that ran down her spine in excitement and pleasure of the soft feeling. Like lukewarm water running down her skin every place it touched.

Strange that the orphans feel cold whenever the smoke is in proximity. She’s never been more content a day in her life.

The opaque claws stretched out from the cocoon around them. Like arms stretching through a wall of tar, it managed to cares her cheek lovingly. “Look, Tom!” she said excitedly as she exposed her face upwards as the hands stroked her eyelids gently and slowly down where her neck met her shoulder.

Tom stared wide eyed as the dark haze psychically left his body and enveloped hers like a dark blanket. He blinked away at the sunlight from the window the smoke had been shielding them from before.

He watched her become submerged by the smoke before his very eyes. He couldn’t even see Hermione hidden behind the wall of thick fog. All was left was the glittering shimmer of hers and the brightness of the outside world. The smoke amassed into a wall in front of him.

“Hermione?!” He asked, panicked. Immediately the cloud dispersed, the fog evaporated thinner and thinner until he could once again see her outline.

“Did you do that?” She asked in excitement as the cloud fell away and slinked its way back to its normal comforting bubble around them like before. Once again they were enveloped in the darkness, the only light inside their bubble came from her glitter, still gleaming excitedly.

“No.” He muttered, shocked as he watched the entity around him with new eyes.

Tom would never admit that he was frightened to the very core.


	7. Chapter 7

###

 1938

The feeling of inevitable dread hadn’t left Tom since the morning of his birthday. The inky musk seemed to have taken a habit of clinging to Hermione’s person like a greedy demon. The suffocating clutch of dark smoke trailed her around the orphanage’s house, utterly out of his control no matter how hard he tried to restrain it.

Utterly out of his control, the smoke tracked her everywhere.

Like a loyal follower, it trailed her into the showers, seamlessly floating through closed doors where the females would take their bi-weekly baths. It rested in her bedroom, where Tom had strict instruction not to follow her there during her sleeping hours. It lingered in the kitchens where the women would cook the stews and clean the pots. It stood sentinel, hovering at her back like a dark apparition watching over as she line the clothing outside. It followed her into the washroom when she’d have to use the loo. Everywhere Hermione went, it followed. 

Lights would flicker dangerously wherever the smoke trailed.  For once, Tom felt cold. For the first time he could see from the eyes of the other orphans. He understood the strange drops of temperature the others would experience. He shivered when the swirling cusps of smoke would pass his shoulders and follow his best friend, ignoring his will to come back to him.

And for some strange reason, if they were across the orphanage form one another- too far away to hear each other with a shout, he always knew it was close to her.

He could sense it. Feel it near her as if he were the one following her around. When she was washing the pots, Tom could feel a faint impression of cool splatters of water land on his arm. Or when she would wander off outside into the wind to fold the clothing with the other girls, he’d feel the impression of air hitting his face from inside the house.

Tom didn’t know what was happening to him until the day he stumbled upon finding her sitting in their small nook where they hid their stolen books. Her fingers were wrapped delicately around a curling vine of smoke as she read. Turning the pages of her book with her free hand, the black, corporeal claws clasped around her wrist, locking her hand in place with it. Hermione trailed her finger over the smoke clasping her wrist-

-and he felt that same lingering sensation at the base of his hand were his pulse point was.

He could sense her fingertip on him, feel her jagged finger nail as if she herself were trailing it slowly down his arm. It was different this time than when he felt the wind touch his face or the water hit his arm. She touched the smoke again, gently, almost without thought as she read her book and he could feel it too.

Tom ran away from the room, for the first time in his life feeling as mad as the other children believing him to be.

“It’s fine, Tom. Don’t be such a baby.” Hermione stressed once he demanded to know how she had managed to tolerate the hovering black apparition. "Most of the time, it's exactly like having you around." She upturned her nose away from him and stuck it back into her book without another word.

She couldn’t see the claws for the gruesome sight they were and he hated it.

### 

_July_

It was only with the second appearance of Albus Dumbledore that put Tom’s confusion to rest.

“Hogwarts is not a place for mad people.” The bearded man said as he sat on his bed. “Hogwarts is a school. A school of magic.”

Tom remained silent, his shoulders squaring. For a split second, he sneered the idea in his head- remembering the American book about magic, wizards, and hobbits Hermione made him read.

Tom smiled, because of _course._ If he was different then-

“Hermione has magic too.” He said without asking. He knew he was right. Her glitter might have looked different but they could both do things others can’t. Lift things in the air without touching them. Set candles aflame without thinking it. “That’s why you came to visit her,” he stated. “Because she’s like me.”

Dumbledore smiled gravely, something about it off and more tense than the situation needed.

“Hermione is a special girl.” Dumbledore stated loudly, turning to the open door where a shuffle can be heard in the hall. Hermione peeked her curly head through shyly, embarrassed to be caught eavesdropping on their conversation. Her cheeks blushed prettily and she toed her shoes together self-consciously.

“Hermione.” Tom said slowly. His eyes not leaving the old man beside him. Hermione dutifully walked over to Tom until she stood beside his chair, her hand falling to the back of his dark wool sweater to hold onto like an anchor. Both children seemed to ease into one another effortlessly.

“Hello, Mr. Albus.” Hermione grinned, delighted to meet the kind man that had spoken to her like a princess so many months prior. It was difficult to forget a friendly face in a sea of so much grey and gloom in that dreary orphanage.

“Hello, Hermione.” Albus smiled down at her kindly, his hands clasping in his lap. “You can do things too can’t you, girl? Do things that other children can’t?”

Hermione swallowed, her heart beating a mile a minute in confusion as she turned her head to look at Tom. Tom gave nothing away, his eyes still boring onto Albus, but she must have sensed something Dumbledore couldn’t when she eagerly opened up to respond.

“We can make things move without touching them.” She grinned, her crooked teeth peeking out proudly.

“We can make animals do what we want without training them.” Tom finished, eyeing Dumbledore with distrust. Hermione nodded along, remembering the pigeons they bribed with bread crumbs to nick Ms. Cole’s bloomers from the clothing line one spring morning. “I can make _bad_ things happen to people who are mean to us.” Tom remembered the older couple that kept touching Hermione, the bad man that kept touching her hair. “I can make them hurt… if I want.” Hermione shuffled behind him, her small hand tugging at the jacket on his back, and for the first time in days, he was able to control the dark _magic_ around him to settle around her shoulders until the familiar feeling of it made her stop fussing.

Tom watched in newfound interest as Albus’ eyes quickly shifted to watch the dark cloud at waft over her shoulders. The movement so quick anyone else would have missed it.

“Who are you?” Tom asked casually.

Dumbledore leaned closer, shaking his head infinitesimally at something in his mind. “Well, I’m like you, children.” He leaned closer, as if about to tell them a secret. “I’m different.”

Tom frowned. He didn’t look different. He didn’t have the dark smoke or the shiny glitter. He was a normal man. “Prove it.”

Without lifting a muscle, a burst of lightening flicked from Dumbledore’s fingertips straight toward Tom’s wardrobe. A burst of flames lit up the room in red and white fire instantaneously. Albus smiled at their opposite reactions. Tom sat up stiffly, the smallest of smiles gracing his lips he watched the fire roar in the room. Hermione bounced on her toes, a look of awe on her bright, open face.

With another quick burst of lightning from Albus’ hands, the wardrobe trembled, the heavy doors quaked in their hinges as something loud rattled inside.

“I think there’s something in your wardrobe trying to get out, Tom.” Albus said pointedly.

With a look of confusion, Hermione stepped aside as Tom got up gracefully toward the wardrobe.

“Be careful!” Hermione cried out as his hand reached to grab the iron handle, but his skin brushed through the flame without hurting. “What does it feel like?”

Tom turned and opened his palm toward her, wordlessly inviting her toward him. His eyes rolling in mock exasperation.  Hermione reached the wardrobe in two strides, her hand cautiously reaching toward the flames in curiosity.

“It doesn’t hurt.” He whispered gently to her, careful so Dumbledore wouldn’t hear them over the loud rattling inside. “It’s cold, see?” he led her fingers to the door’s handle, through the cool flames. Hermione opened the doors without pause, their eyes settling on the familiar tin where Tom kept his only possessions.

Tom took it out and laid it on the bed.

“Open it, Tom.” Dumbledore prompted as he got up to stand by the wardrobe. With another quick flash of white light, the fire immediately died down.

A small harmonica, the soft black journal she’d given him, and the red yoyo Tom stole from Dennis for Hermione was revealed.

Albus took the yo-yo and inspected it. “Thievery is not tolerated at Hogwarts, son.” Tom looked up sharply at the casual accusation as Albus reached down to inspect the small yoyo. A small beam of light hit the toy as he ran his thumb over the cracked plastic. “At Hogwarts, you will be taught not only how to use magic, but how to control it.” His eyes quickly flickered to the black cloud now beginning to swirl at his and Hermione’s feet. “Something I feel you already have a vague awareness of.” He smiled.

“Hermione can do it too.” Tom said impulsively; not trusting the man, but understanding he has more knowledge Tom wants.

“That I know, boy.” Albus smiled. “I came to visit her because a good friend of mine had been passing through and told me of a young orphan girl with yellow stars, twinkling like the oldest of constellations, floating around her as she lined the laundry. May I see it once more, dearest?”

“Show him.” He commanded without turning to look at her. Hermione pinched the skin above his elbow harshly and Tom flinched. “…Please?”

Sighing, Hermione pressed her fingertips together, slowly releasing the flood of glitter she’d been keeping locked away.

The room light up brighter than the red flames ever could as the shimmering magic swirled around them.

“We called it our glitter.” Hermione confessed in resignation as Albus sat back down and began playing with the fixed yoyo. “Well,” she smirked haughtily, “ _mine_ looks like glitter. Tom’s make it seem like he’s just come out of a wildfire.”

Albus’ grinned, watching the swirls catch in the stream of sunlight breaking through the clouds outside. Mixed with the black swirling smoke at their feet, it was quite a curious sight indeed. “It certainly looks like it.”

“You have it too.” Tom announced, interrupting Hermione and Albus’ conversation. “When you did your magic trick. It looks like lightning bolts.”

Albus’ stiffened, sitting up straight as his eyes bored into Tom’s seriously. “You can see _my_ magic?” The way he said it must have meant it was a big deal.

“Can’t _you_?” Hermione surmised in confusion, watching Albus nonchalantly get up and gather his things, placing the fixed yoyo back onto the bed.

“You can see _ours_.” Tom said, a red flag waving in warning as he steered Hermione back toward the desk. “We can see each other’s. Why is it so wrong we can see yours as well?”

“It seems that even as old as I am, young man, that I do still have a lot to learn.” He said quickly, albeit gently. But, like a switch, his expression changed and an expectant grin lit him up again. “A formal letter for your attendance will arrive in the mail, Tom. The start of term begins September 1st where, if you so choose to attend, you will begin with the other eleven year olds your age.”

Hermione frowned, “other eleven year olds…?”

Tom swiveled quickly to Albus in distress, his eyes widening in surprise, the first sign of something other than apathy marring his face. “Hermione won’t be starting with me?”

“But I have magic too!” she said aghast, sitting up straight. Her eyes boring into Albus’ shrewdly like a hawk.

“You can’t separate us!” Tom rallied. His eyes wild and his hair somehow rising on end like a static whip. Albus paused, searching between both of them. The dark clouds previously settled between them began to turn as turbulent as a storm. What once was happily dancing swirls of light began to shake like boiling bubbles ready to burst. Albus very nearly took a hesitant step back from the suddenly vibrating atmosphere between them.

“Sir,” Hermione’s mouth wobbled. “I can’t live here alone. I can’t-”

“She gets sick,” Tom said suddenly, nearly begging. “I keep her from getting sick, I don’t know how I do it but I do.”

Albus’ eyes were serious as he watched the children grip one another. “I will have to speak with the Headmaster, yours is a rather…” he searched for words, watching as the gold and black intermixed, “…interesting predicament.”

###

It had been nearly two weeks and Tom and Hermione sat in her bedroom. Dumbledore had left behind a parting gift for the orphans, something to “look in to,” and keep Tom interested in Hogwarts, regardless of the fact that he might be leaving Hermione behind for the better part of two years before she’d be able to follow him.

She had cracked open the thick binding of the large tome with greedy lust for knowledge. Her mouth practically salivating at the text about magic. The white material was nothing they’d ever seen before. It was slippery and soft to the touch. She hunched over the giant book protectively, her hair falling over like a curtain over the fine paper.

Tom sat in front of her silently, half his attention on Hermione’s mumbling, the other half on their meeting with the professor.

“Look at this!” She cried excitedly for the seventh time in an hour, “ _Non-magic people,_ it says here they’re called ‘muggles,’ _were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not good at recognizing it…_ ” she remained quiet again, her lips moving quickly as her eyes quickly read the text. Tom reclined his head against the wall and closed his eyes, mouth souring at the idea that the old chit would dare think Tom would stand to be removed of his only friend. Hermione snorted in giggles again and he opened his eyes lazily to watch her situate herself more comfortably on the bed.

“Look!” she repeated through her laughter. “During a witch trial, _the witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm_ , vastly interesting, don’t you think, Tommy?” he sniveled derisively at the affectionate nickname, “- _and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises._ Marvelous!”

Tom opened his mouth to respond, but she was already lost in the next paragraph, chewing her thumbnail on one hand and following her words with the other.

 “Look at this.” She repeated reverently as she released the chewed fingernail from her mouth and reached to stroke the words she’d read. “ _There is a phenomenon known as Diamond Dust,_ ” Hermione whispered, “ _where snowflakes and ice-particles are so fine that they reflect light in just the right way to create rainbows in mid-air._ ”

Tom smiled, watching rainbows catch in the gold glitter swirling between the both of them. There were no windows in Hermione’s room, but each individual speck floated in a way that made it easy to see how the muggles had coined the term to begin with.

“Diamond Dust.” Tom whispered, hands lifting to caress the glitter. His fingers ticked, much the same way that medieval witch must have felt as she pretended to burn.

“ _It is said, that the purest of magic is identical in looks to this phenomenon. However, very few can see it, and even less can prove it, as it takes a remarkable amount of power and strength to see the magic of another witch or wizard._ ” She looked up, eyes twinkling in happiness. The air swirled magically with the diamond dust she’d finished reading about. “We can see it, Tom. And Dumbledore can see it too.”

He frowned. “But mine is black. Like a cloud.”

She shrugged, “maybe it’s just a different form? Dumbledore’s was like lightning.” She smiled, her own little twinkle in her eye. She was smug, because the book had mentioned something rare and identical to her magic.

He almost thought he should envy her, but thought better of it.

It takes a remarkable amount of power and strength to see magic, the book had said. He smiled with a violent satisfaction to the idea of the weak orphan boy holding that much power at his fingertips.

If he went to Hogwarts in September he’d be able to hone his powers. He’d never be weak again. Suddenly, one month seemed too far! He couldn’t wait to-

…leave Hermione behind for two years?

No. Unacceptable.

Tom sat up, twisting in anger and contempt at his situation. In a fit of panic and rage he snatched the large book from her hands and threw it to the ground where it clattered loudly. A small cloud of dust kicked up from the floor.

“Tom!” Hermione shrieked, annoyed. “What’s the matter with you?”

“He can’t separate us!” Tom bellowed in an uproar, pacing the confinements of her bedroom like a caged lion. “Two years, Hermione, I can’t-” he gasped, his breathing picking up. Hermione would move on. Grow closer to Dennis and Amy. She’d turn ten then eleven, and then when she started school he’d been a third year… she’d get her own friends… he’d be alone… she’d be by herself…

He gasped again, “two years… two years…” Hermione jumped off her bed in a panic, clutching at his shirt but he couldn’t see her. She was a blurry motion before him. Cold black magic seeped from the ground, flowing form the soles of his feet upward and billowed around them disastrously.

“You… I can’t…”

Suddenly wound tighter than a coil, he fought to chase away the tightness in his chest. His eyes pinched and his breathing grew accelerated. With half a mind he could hear Hermione begging him to calm down, but he pounded his bent knees, arms shaking as he hunched over himself. But her pleading words were underwater, his mind was racing, and he couldn’t hear anything over the silence his life would be without her in it. He couldn’t see past the heavy veil of loneliness threatening to break his heart.

Maybe if he’d never met her, he wouldn’t be so weak.

Maybe if she’d never entered his life he’d not panic at the idea of beginning a life in a new world, all alone. Maybe if he’d never met her-

_Crack!_ A hand smacked across his face and Tom stopped breathing for a split second, enough to stop his mind from thinking too much too fast.

“Tom?” Hermione whispered, her small hands on his thin shoulders. She turned him to face her, his head hung down and hair fell over his eyes as he watched their bare feet, dirty from the floor. He looked up at her, and she half expected there to be tears in his eyes, but they were hard and mad. His mouth was set in a deep frown. His black irises reflected his anger at the world and their powerless situation.

“I don’t want to leave you, Hermione.” Hermione swallowed against the dryness in her throat.  “He can’t separate us.”

Dumbledore wouldn’t separate them. He couldn’t.

_Think_ , Tom. He fought to remember the details. The tiny nuances of the old man’s facial expressions.

Tom knew fear when he saw it. He reveled in it. It made his temperature spike and heart race when the look would pass over someone. He’d seen in it Billy when he killed his stupid rabbit. He’d seen it in those filthy (what did Hermione call them?) _muggles’_ faces the day that man touched Hermione.

Albus was afraid of something and Tom wanted to know what it was.

“He can separate us and he will.” She sighed, speaking the truth neither of them wanted to hear. “He’s the adult, Tom. Be reasonable. This is a school of _magic_. You’re not going to skip simply because I can’t be there to hold your hand.”

“Hold my-” Tom sputtered half-heartedly, trying to pay attention to her against the echo of the panic attack. However, he didn’t correct her. “I need you there so I won’t get bored out of my wits.”

She smiled faintly, unwilling to call him out on his false nonchalance.

“You’re the smartest person I know aside from myself- I highly doubt there will be any children at that magic school that can amuse me suitably.”

He slowed his breathing and held her wrist loosely. The cold sweat dried and his breathing returned to normal. The smoke, however, did not fizzle down.

“Magic can’t be that rare.” She said finally after he’d let her wrist go. She crawled onto her bed and laid flat on her belly to watch him as he sat on the floor below her. “You heard the professor, there’s an entire school filled with children just like us. Those children have families- whom must also have magic, and those families have ancestors. Don’t you know what that means? All this time we thought we were different, when in fact we aren’t.”

“But apparently we _are_.” He nodded to the book in evidence. “Apparently it’s rare for people to see magic, let alone see someone else’s. You saw the way he looked at us when he realized we can see his.” He sighed, sitting back down against the wall beside her bed. She folded her hands beneath her chin and looked down at him as he toyed with a loose thread in his sock, the candle stick hovering in the air between them. “We’re a freak among freaks.”

Hermione rolled her eyes at his dramatics. Suddenly, she realized something. “You said Ms. Cole found your mum in the alley… that she had popped up out of nowhere? What if she had magic too?” she rushed excitedly.

Tom’s frown deepened, he looked away, dropped the candlestick, as his mood soured. He hated speaking of his mother. She was weak. Dead before she could even look upon her own son’s face. She was sad and she was pathetic and he pitied the nights lain awake wondering what she looked like.

“Fat chance. If she had magic she wouldn’t have died that night…I wish I knew what she looked like.” He confessed. “Ms. Cole said she was ugly.”

“Must have been to give birth to you. You’re hideous.”

Tom threw her a sour look and the pillow beside her whizzed through in the air, hitting her in the face.

Hermione lay back down, giggling in jest, happy his panic attack seemed to be a crossed bridge.

She couldn’t remember her own family either. She could remember the smell of fresh bread and granola in the mornings. A kind woman with pretty hair. The way a woman that may have been her mum would correct her grammar.

But she couldn’t remember the sound of her father’s laughter or the smell of her mum’s perfume.

She couldn’t remember names.

She couldn’t remember anything of real importance.

“It’s better to never have known at all than to not remember.” She looked at her jagged nails, trying to forget what she couldn’t remember.

“Well I-” Tom’s retort was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

Ms. Cole opened the bedroom door without warning, watching Tom and Hermione sit across from one another in suspicion. “Didn’t I tell you two to keep the doors open? It’s unbecoming of a young lady to have a boy in her room.” Hermione looked down, a blush covering her cheeks.

Tom stood up from the floor, brushing off any dirt from his trousers. “Yes, Ms. Cole?” he nearly snapped.

She watched him shrewdly. There was no ounce of love lost for Tom since the murder of the pet rabbit, however, Ms. Cole no longer tried to mask her disapproval of him and his devilish ways.

“Letters, for the both of you. Delivered to the doorstep.” She handed them to Tom and walked away, leaving the door pointedly wide open.

Tom looked down at the thin square envelopes. Both of them addressed to one another.

**_Miss Hermione Jean Granger_ **

and

**_Mr. Tom Riddle_ **

Tom handed her hers, and inspected the red wax seal at the seam. An interesting crest was designed into the shiny wax. He could hear Hermione tearing hers equally as cautious. His hands shook.

_Hogwarts School_

_of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Headmaster: Armando Dippet_

_Dear Mr. Riddle,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1 st. we await your owl by no longer than 31 July._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore_

_Deputy Headmaster_

Tom folded the letter back up, heart threatening to race again. “What does yours say, Hermione?” he turned around. She stood still in the center of the room, slack-jawed, staring at the paper in her had similar to his. “Is it an acceptance letter?” he said, excitedly, noting the similar handwriting.

“No,” she said, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. Tom’s heart fell to his stomach, ice filled his veins, and before he could create a chaos of the likes neither of them have seen before, she spoke in a shaky whisper.

“It’s an adoption request...” she handed him the papers. Tom snatched them from her hands and looked it over. “Albus Dumbledore wants to adopt me.”


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

 

 

A storm cloud brewed outside as Tom paced Miss Cole’s office. Hermione was trapped inside with the adults, determining her fate with her new adopted _father._ Albus Dumbledore.

Tom raged, containing his magic within, his anger like a hot blister ready to burst at first sign of strain.

“ _Miss Cole,_ ” an officiant said, “ _Mr. Dumbledore has spoken with the state’s officials. As warden of this orphanage, you are under strict regulation to hand Miss Hermione over to-_ ”

“ _We do not know anything about this man!”_ Miss Cole shrieked inside.

“Well, well. Guess the rumors are true then. Looks like your wittle girlfriend is leaving you for good now,” a sniveling voice said behind Tom where he’d had his ear pressed into the wood of the door.

Tom pretended to ignore him, a long suffering sigh his only signal he’d heard Billy at all.

“All alone now you’ll be, ya good for nothing prat!”

“Leave him alone, Stubbs…” One of the older children said as they passed through the hall to get to the kitchens. So surprised was he that someone was defending him, Tom turned away from the door to look up at the older boy. Dennis Bishop. “…Riddle probably can’t understand you anyway. He only speaks _freak_.”

Tom’s small smile froze on his face as Billy cackled at Dennis’ taunt. Seizing Tom’s moment of distraction, Billy surged forward and pushed Tom into the wall. Tom stumbled back, not seeing the blow beforehand and was unable to stop his body from crashing into the wall. His head bounced against the plaster with a sharp _crack_.

Dennis walked away whistling a cheerful tune, uncaring, as if he hadn’t seen anything at all.

Tom, furious right down to the very core, held the whip and crackle of his magic in, unwilling to cause a scene when so many adults were right within hearing reach. The bump on his skull beat like a heavy heartbeat.

His hands clenched in his fists so tight his knuckles shook. Words- heavy, loathsome, hurtful words- lashed at his teeth like bleeding whips. They stuck to his throat and bit at his cheek, unable to be expressed through the bubbling red hazing his vision.

Immediately, the door behind them opened and Billy scurried off behind Dennis. Miss Cole stood at the entrance, unsurprised to find Tom standing there staring into space.

Miss Cole sighed, wary of the tense hunch of Tom’s shoulders. “Come in, boy. If you’re going to listen in, might as well do it with an invitation.” She turned back into her office, leaving the door open for him to follow.

Tom entered and was met with two other pairs of eyes. A man with a briefcase on his lap and thinning brown hair sat across Miss Cole’s desk. At the furthest corner sat Hermione, blazing eyes set on him.

Without a sound, Tom went to her, keeping his cool eyes on the adults.

“Minny.” Tom greeted quietly, his nickname shared secretly for the two alone.

Hermione scoot over without speaking, inviting him to sit in the large chair with her. He shook his head, choosing to stand sentinel at her knees.

Tom turned and surveyed the tense room. Miss Cole was not meeting his or Hermione’s eyes. Her back was ramrod straight and a paper in her right hand was nearly crumpled in her grip. The officiant was sweating, gripping the handles of his briefcase in nervousness under Miss Cole’s unwavering glare.

“Mr. Dumbledore should be here soon.” The man said, checking his watch. “We should wait before we discuss anything further.”

“No need, Harold.” The older man appeared so suddenly and silently, Tom would have assumed he’d ascended from the floorboards. All eyes turned to Albus Dumbledore shrugging off a long overcoat. “I am already here.” Dumbledore turned to greet Hermione with a small smile, he revealed two red lollies out of thin air and offered them to the children. “Hello, Tom. Hermione.”

Behind Tom, Hermione sighed in exasperation.

“Mister Dumbledore,” she said taking the lollies and handing them to Tom without so much as a thank you. “May you please expel all these absurd notions of your proposal to adopt me and tell Mister Habersmith to leave the premises at once? This is all just a misunderstanding. Everyone knows I will not be adopted without Tom.”

Harold Habersmith, the lawyer with the briefcase, sat back stunned at the nine year old child prodigy spewing her demands to the room of adults. Tom stiffened his spine in pride, a trickle of magic, invisible to their eyes and possibly Dumbledore’s, flew forth from his feet and wrapped around her ankle in approval.

“My heavens.” Harold said after a stunned pause. “Who on earth conceived this child? The Oxford Dictionary?”

Miss Cole chuckled behind her hand and Albus’ eyes twinkled. “She’s a bright young girl, our Hermione. Best in her grade school…” Miss Cole trailed off, “that is, until the city decided it deemed unfit for the orphans to continue their education in this economy.”

Albus nodded his head. “Trying times Europe is going through now, Miss Cole.”

“Here, here.” Harold grumbled, dabbing at his sweating head.

Hermione and Tom looked to each other. She rolled her eyes and he sneered in response, both annoyed with the adult turn of the conversation.

“Back to the matter at hand. I do believe that Miss Hermione should have a say in what happens with her life.” Albus said after the room grew a few degrees cooler from the melancholic atmosphere, “Her demands should be held with certain care.”

“You’ll adopt Tom!?” She cried out gleefully, hand reaching out to clutch her best friend’s shoulder.

The officiant sputtered, “This is an adult matter and she cannot possibly-”

Hermione furrowed her brows in quick agitation. She sat taller, squaring her shoulders. “It was an agreement between Miss Cole and me three years ago.” She informed the room. “I gave her three shillings in exchange for her word, and as you may be aware of Mister Habersmith, a monetary exchange between two parties are as binding as a written contract. I made my demands and they cannot be ignored. I’ve told you once I will not repeat myself again. Tom goes or I stay. It is a matter between Mister Dumbledore, and myself. Is it not?”

Tom hid his grin behind a mask of indifference and any doubt he felt of them taking away Hermione from him fell away with her usual terms and conditions. He finally hopped up onto the chair and sat beside her, attitude completely serene now that he understood she wasn’t going to leave him.

Still, he stayed quiet.

“Tom _is_ going with us, young lady.” Albus said, smiling. “It was never a matter of one or the other.” He turned to Miss Cole and Harold the lawyer. “Leave us for a moment?”

A few moments later, the children and Albus were alone. He walked up to their chair and crouched in front of Hermione. With a quick nod of consent, Hermione allowed him to take her hand in his. Tom watched on with cool eyes as Dumbledore spoke to her softly, almost paternally.

“Young girl, I do wish to make you my daughter. I’ve lived a long life and never had children of my own.” Dumbledore whispered kindly. She looked up at him with a mix of skepticism and uncertainty, her hand clutched against the back of Tom’s shirt. “But I do promise you this, a life of great adventure awaits if you’ll accept me.”

He frowned, jaw ticking in agitation. Hermione’s hand fell away from him Dumbledore’s as she seemed to think.

“Where Tom goes, then as do I.” She said at once, reaffirming her beliefs.

“Tom will be attending the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry within the end of the month. A school, which may I add, I am the Deputy Headmaster of. I live there during the school year… as will you.”

Tom and Hermione both perked up at this. They did not know this! Hermione will live in the school where he would attend! This changed everything!

Unable to contain the curiosity, Tom quickly demanded, “She will attend the school with me?”

“Not exactly.” He hedged. “She will be living in the school alongside me, yes, as her father by law if Hermione so chooses to hand me the honor,” he smiled gently at her again. “But she will be unable to attend classes until she comes of age. However, until then, Hermione may have free reign of any part of the castle.”

Tom and Hermione turned to one another, seeming to have a wordless conversation Dumbledore mused must have taken them years of experience and constant exposure to one another to perfect.

He watched as Hermione nodded imperceptibly, Tom’s eyes narrowed in response and her hand gripped just a little tighter into his shirt.

This is why he wanted to adopt her, Albus mused. Her a jolly attitude and unparalleled wisdom was something to be admired.

The young girl was peculiar in a truly exceptional way. Her mannerisms, her dialect, the way she could control her magic. The brilliant gold dust he’d only ever seen once in his life.

She reminded him of his late sister… _before_ the attack.

He already saw her as kin. The only question was whether she’d accept his hand as her father by law.

However, there was absolutely no record of her ever being born within the Ministry’s archive in the Department of Birth Certification. Muggle born or not, her magic would have sprung up on the ministries’ radar sooner or later… Curiously enough, Hermione seemingly popped up from thin air on the steps of Wool’s Orphanage nine years ago.

Dumbledore was no fool. Either this child was a time-traveler, or whomever gave birth to her nine years ago did not want the Ministry to find her.

He was positive the answer lay in the former, the only question begging to be asked was- why? Who sent her here? How did they accomplish such a feat? What did they wish to accomplish with interfering with this child’s life?

Hermione and Tom broke away from their staring match within seconds into Albus’ musing. Hermione turned to him, a sparkle of joy and mischief blazed in her eyes, reminding him all the more of his sister Ariana, and offered her hand to Albus.

“I accept your proposal, Mister Dumbledore. Or may I call you something more informal?”

Albus laughed jollily, taking her tiny hand in his to shake once. “You may call me whatever you wish, young lady. For now, Albus is fine.”

She grinned triumphantly.

A dark, possessive streak gleamed in Tom’s eye as he watched as Hermione agreeably signed the documentation in her scratchy handwriting, labeling her as Dumbledore’s daughter. He couldn’t stop the curl of his upper lip at their prominent display of newfound affection.

The smoke, for once invisible to each of the wizard’s eyes, crept out of the soles of his feet and slithered its way like a ghost over the dirty floorboards toward Hermione’s bare leg.

It curled around her ankle and clung to her like a weightless shackle.

###

One week later brought the first of September and Albus Dumbledore at their doorsteps once more. The children were aligned in a row by the front door as requested by Miss Cole, to wave off Tom and Hermione and say their farewells.

“Goodbye, Elisa.” Hermione hugged one of the newer orphans, a young four year old who had been abandoned on the London streets. Hermione had taken to caring for the little girl like a little sister. “Eat all of your vegetables and never forget to wash your hands before supper. You will be adopted before you know it, little peach.” She promised, patting the girl’s neat braids fashioned after Hermione’s messier one.

Tom stood by the opened door waiting impatiently alongside Dumbledore. Both the children’s belongings fit into one small bag in which had already been stowed away inside the unmarked cabbie. Billy Stubbs would not stop glaring at him triumphantly, as well as all the other children. He’d heard whispers of excitement through the halls over his leave and both he and Hermione did their best to ignore it.

“Finally got you out of our hair, freak.” One of the older kids whispered into Tom’s ear as he pretended to hug him farewell.

“No one would be touching your empty room! It’s likely to be contaminated!” another guffawed, roughly patting Tom’s bony shoulder and pushing away from him.

Albus noticed the young boy fist his hands and commended his patients against the bullies. He tried to pat Tom on the shoulder in approval, but Tom shook Albus’ hand off him with a careless shrug.

Tom ground his teeth and ignored both the boy’s taunts and Dumbledore’s unnecessary compassion as Hermione continued to hug and kiss her friends farewell. He knew she preferred Tom’s company, but she’d grown up with these children as well and couldn’t resist to offer words of encouragement to their dismal chances of adoption.

“She’s well-loved here, isn’t she?” Dumbledore asked Tom.

He shrugged. “She’s friends with the freak. They think she’s the bravest person in the world.”

Dumbledore laughed beside him and turned a curious glace down to the light pink book bag Tom held. “More brave than you are? For putting up with the bullies and shielding her from the hurtful words? For allowing her to befriend the enemies you’ve made?”

His brows furrowed and he glanced up at Dumbledore. Nobody’s ever called him _brave_ before. Well, Hermione has, but she’s supposed to say stupid lies like that.

Tom stayed quiet long enough for Dumbledore to turn and politely speak with Miss Cole. “She was a god send…” Miss Cole praised, pressing a tissue to dab the tears at her eyes. “She had a way of turning our rowdiest of orphans into adoptable angels.” Her gaze landed on Tom where he leaned against the doorframe, arms tensed at his side as he watched the children with an upraised nose. “Not to say that I am not glad she’d finally found a place. She’s a brilliant girl with so much love to give.”

Hermione stood at the end of the line now, grin stretched wide as she giggled impishly with another nine year old.

“Hermione.” Tom said lowly, gathering her attention as Billy was about to give her a mockery of a farewell hug.

With a glare turned to her best friend, she ignored Tom and continued making her rounds until she’d parted with every last child, even Billy Stubbs.

“Hermione.” He growled under his breath, the shackle at her ankle twisting around her leg until it dug in like icy splinters. A warning to listen to him. Hermione’s head snapped to Tom’s knowingly. With a curious glare to her leg, the invisible smoke retreated and the pinprick sensation evaporated at her command, out of Tom’s control. “Let’s go,” Tom commanded again.

“ _Arse_.” She muttered lowly so the adults wouldn’t hear. Tom rolled his eyes and handed her the small pink book bag she was found with nine years ago.

###

They sat beside one another in the small cabbie, Dumbledore up front beside their driver. The drive wasn’t an interesting one, so they spent it staring out the window with the same imaginative curiosity any other child would.

“That raincloud looks like a lion.” Hermione pointed at a dark mass of puffy cloud interwoven between the grey skies. Tom pretended to see what she was pointing at but nodded absently, wondering why the car was stopping at the mouth of an alley.

“Here we are children.” Dumbledore announced jovially, handing the driver a few pounds and opening the back door for Tom, who in turn helped Hermione out of her seat with a helping, courteous hand. Dumbledore took their bag from the trunk and the cabbie pulled away with a plume of dark smoke thick enough to rival Tom’s magic.

“Um…” Hermione wondered aloud, peering into the nondescript alleyway. A lone newspaper breezed past them on the abandoned sidewalk, carried along the crooked cobblestone by the fall breeze. “Where exactly are we?”

“Why, you’re looking at the entrance to one of the most popular alleys in wizarding London!” Dumbledore crowed happily, guiding the children into the alley behind an empty pub and stopping at a long brick wall.

“This is a wall.” Tom bit mockingly. 

“But not just a wall, my boy.” Albus’ eyes twinkled, and from the pockets of his overcoat, he revealed a long and thin stick. “Watch, children.”

“Is that _a magic_ _wand_?” Hermione whispered fervently into Tom’s ear, both children eyeing Dumbledore’s movements attentively.

Albus turned around, overhearing her loud curiosity. “It is.”

“Can I gold it!?” she shrieked, eyes the size of moons.

 “I’m afraid not, little witch.” He said, for once unsmiling as his gaze remained serious. “It’s very dangerous to hold another wizard’s wand, especially an underage witch such as yourself.”

She huffed. “What age must you be then?”

“A witch or wizard receives their first wands at the age of eleven.”

Tom grinned triumphantly at Hermione’s scowl. Dumbledore turned back to the wall once more and tapped a short rhythm against the hard brick.

With a gasp, Hermione clutched at Tom’s hand as the bricks began to move in itself with a loud grating screech of stone grinding against stone. The bricks swiveled and disappeared, revealing, inch by inch, movement from the other side.

“Can you see anything yet?” Hermione asked, jumping up and around to better see the new scene. She was small, especially for her age and couldn’t see past Albus’ legs. 

The children’s eyes widened as Albus moved to the side to allow them better viewing.

“Welcome to Diagon Alley.” Dumbledore smiled down to the entranced children, staring wide eyed and slack-jawed at the buzzing street aflutter with early morning activities.

He took Hermione by the hand, who tugged Tom along beside her in fear he might get swept away into the sea of dark cloaks and witches’ hats. Their knuckles were white against one another’s in fear they’d separate inside the mass of chattering men, women, and children.

Along either side of them, tall crooked buildings with dark shingles all stood proudly below a bright glittering blue sky. The sun, practically nonexistent where they lived, shone brightly for the morning.

Shops of all types were displaying their goods behind large windows, their doors propped open welcomingly for any curious passersby to wander in.

There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange winding instruments Hermione or Tom had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes- the small vials labeling each distinctively. Tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon. Men wheeled wooden carts full to the brim with potted plants that shrieked when looked at. A bookshop contained floating books. A clothing store displayed a dress that changed color every time you blinked. A bakery held their windows open and the streets smelled of fresh bread and pastries of the likes the children have never dreamed of before.

Children ran and played unaccompanied, groups of tittering mothers laughed behind them lazily. Shopping bags floated dutifully behind them, never getting lost or left behind.

A group of teenagers stood outside of a candy shop and a boy was dared to chew on a piece of taffy- his entire head transformed into a duck’s, then changed back to normal upon swallowing!

Everyone seemed to notice Albus Dumbledore. Everyone seemed to know who he was, too.

They stopped every once in a while to greet him or ask him about the two children he was accompanying. They nodded or smiled or waved or tipped their tall pointy hats, each formal or informal greeting was acknowledged by the man holding the little girl’s hand.

He enthusiastically introduced Hermione as his adopted daughter by law, something that made her both blush and straighten up with pride- much to Tom’s ever growing seed of anger.

Albus walked alongside the children at a slow pace, mindful of the curious stares and kind greetings, as the children took everything in with wide eyes. Every new sight, sound, or smell captured their attention. Where Hermione looked, Tom’s eyes followed, where he pointed she gaped, where she led, he followed.

Tom’s head was ready to explode with all the new things he’d seen and never dreamed of before. There was a two headed dog attached to a floating leash, there was a carpet that changed colors depending who stepped on it… everything was met with awe and astonishment.

The stoic boy was lively and his grin was wicked. There was a new land right at his fingertips all his to explore.

Hermione was no less overwhelmed as she peered into a bookshop. Tomes, giant leather bound beasts, thin books, small books, a book the size of her head! All of them just begging to be read. Knowledge of the world she’d been pushed into, one she’d happily never leave, right inside that door. Neither children had a single penny to their name, yet it didn’t tramp their curiosity a single inch.

But Tom tugged her hand, urging her forward without looking back. Caught between wanting to see whatever caught her best friend’s eye or get lost in the pages inside that store, Dumbledore was quick with some words of encouragement.

“We can come back to Flourish and Blotts later, Hermione.” Albus said behind her. “A book or two seems a rather apt gift for my new daughter, don’t you think?”

Her heart stopped, tears almost flew to her eyes at the prospect of buying not _one_ but _two_ new books. She grinned, reached through Albus’ coat and gave his waist a firm hug.

“I’m glad it was you that adopted me.” Her mutter was mumbled against his belly, her secret caught in the wind and lost in the noise of the narrow street. But Albus heard it and he smiled.

Before he could respond, she ran ahead to where Tom stood, watching the scene with a narrowed glare, impatiently waving her over. With a murderous look at Dumbledore, who was distracted by yet another stranger stopping to say hello, Tom took her hand and didn’t let it go the rest of their day.

“We’ll go to Gringotts first.” Dumbledore announced after finding them with their noses pressed into the windows of Magical Menagerie’s pet shop.

“What’s Gringotts?” Hermione asked, the first to turn away from where she had been admiring a fat orange kitten hissing at a group of children.

Dumbledore pointed to a large white marble stone building. It towered over Diagon Alley’s shops at the end of an intersection between two alleys. “Gringotts Wizarding bank is the only bank in all of wizarding London.”

“A bank?” Tom said, eyeing the imposing building and its large stone steps with a distrusting frown. “But we haven’t got any money.”

“Miss Cole used to give Tom a small allowance for completing any chores outside of the Orphanage, like mowing the grass for Mrs. Jameson. But he spent it all on sweets.” She sniffed at Tom haughtily, unable to forgive him for using up his three shillings on candy and not even bothering to share with her.

Tom glowered and almost lashed back that she’d need to forgive him eventually, when Dumbledore chuckled heartily.

“The school will provide you, Tom, a small stipend considering your orphaned status. You’ll have enough for the essentials and a few sickles to spare. Come inside now.” He took Hermione’s hand in his and Tom followed behind obediently, carrying their lightweight bag, as Dumbledore kept Hermione’s heavier one slung across his shoulder.

“Muggle?” Tom mouthed to her as they were led toward a large set of burnished bronze doors.

“It means people that are non-magical.” Hermione whispered at Tom, remembering the word having read it once in the thick text Albus had given her.  “What’s a sickle?”

“He probably meant to say _shilling_.”

Two ugly creatures guarded the giant doors outside of Gringotts. Hermione pressed her feet into the sleek stone steps and flinched as the strange wrinkled beasts eyed the children mistrustingly.

“No underage children allowed, Dumbledore.” The voice rasped, its ghoulish features crinkled in distaste as its deep set eyes dragged along Hermione’s form, hidden beneath her thick _muggle_ jacket obtrusively. 

“This is my daughter, Grumpky. Her name is Hermione.” He introduced her confidently. He waved to Tom standing guard beside her. “And this is her friend, and a new student at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle.” Something in Dumbledore’s serious stare said more than any strongly worded admonishment.

The goblin dragged its glare from Hermione to Tom and huffed irately.

“Looks like a troll.” Hermione whispered into Tom’s ear.

“Welcome to Gringotts,” the little beast grumbled unwelcomingly as he and his silent partner opened the heavy bronze doors. Inside, the doors were flanked by two other _things_ , who turned their unwelcoming glares to Tom and Hermione.

“What were those things?” Hermione wondered aloud.

“Goblins.” Albus answered merrily, “not very happy fellows but they do protect their money rather well.” The doors shut with an echoing bang.

Never before had Tom or Hermione seen such beautiful architecture.

So used to the dingy walls within their orphanage, the sleek marble and ornate stain glass windows were some of the most luxurious they’ve ever seen. Gold trim lined the ceiling and drew up beautiful archways along the walls. Their old tennis shoes were hand-me-downs and worn out, and their muddied soles squeaked embarrassingly loud _squelch_ es with every step.

A giant two-tiered crystal chandelier hung in the middle of the echoing room, millions of shining bright crystals dangled and illuminated the beautiful bank enchantingly.

The walls were lined with hundreds of stoic and grumpy looking goblins, each guarding closed doors or dark passageways. Dumbledore didn’t spare much of the architecture a glance, accustomed to the opulence.

“I feel bad for whoever tries to rob this place.” Tom whispered, mindful of each sound carrying and bouncing along the walls. “There are so many of them.”

She looked at the goblins, their sneers or stares following them as they walked.

“They’re creepy alright.” She whispered back, clutching the sleeve of his jacket until they reached the front desk where Albus was already speaking with a goblin, surrounded by rolled up scrolls on his ornate desk so high up she’d need a ladder to climb to the top.

“This young man would like to set up his first account.” Dumbledore said in way of greeting. The goblin set down his quill with an annoyed glare. He rose slightly out of his seat to peer at the two children. Tom stood ramrod straight under the ugly beast’s unwavering stare.

“Under whose authority?” he said, sitting back down and picking up his quill once more.

“Mine. Albus Dumbledore.”

The goblin sighed and fumbled through a few piles of loose parchments. He dug up a long scroll of loose parchment, nearly three feet long, and handed it to Albus without another look. Muttering something quickly to the goblin so the children wouldn’t hear, the grumpy goblin thrust another parchment to Albus, his sneer much less menacing than before.

“Take a seat and read through this. Goneby will be with you momentarily.”

One hour later and one shining brass key leading to an unused vault along the first floor beneath the main lobby, Tom Riddle was a proud owner of his very own vault at Gringotts Wizarding Bank, a small pouch of loaned Galleons were his treasure.

###

Dumbledore urged Tom and Hermione toward a small, cozy little shop on a quieter part of Diagon Alley. _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._ read the proud sign with peeling gold letters over the creaky wooden door. Its display consisted of a solitary wand lying on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

“Think you’ll get a magic wand?” Hermione inquired, pulling Tom to press their noses up at the display, eager to see more until they could get inside.

Tom didn’t answer except to throw the door open and drag her in with him before Dumbledore could catch up.

The shop was tiny, empty except for a single, spindly chair in the corner. Thousands of narrow boxes were piled right up to the ceiling of the tiny shop, and the whole place had a thin layer of dust about it. It smelled old, almost moldy, like unmopped rainwater. The wooden desk at the center of the small room held piles of more boxes. A young man slowly walked down a short flight of stairs and approached the gaping children.

Behind them, the door dinged shut as Albus entered, removing his coat and draping it over his arm.

“Ollivander!” Dumbledore greeted happily, smiling at the young shopkeeper. “How’s Gervaise doing?”

“My father’s traveling the America’s with mother! Happy as clams, those two are.” The young man, perhaps mid-thirties, with long hair tied back with a leather strap, laughed. “Left the shop to me, not that I mind much. How can I help you, Professor?”

“Come now, Garrick, I haven’t been your professor in decades.” He beckoned Tom, bringing him to the wand maker’s attention. “This is Mister Tom Riddle, a new student a Hogwarts. Tom, this is Garrick Ollivander, the finest wand maker in the world.”

Garrick seemed to preen under the high praise and shook hands with the young boy. “How do you do, young man?” He spotted Hermione, poking her nose along the labels of each box stacked into the wall of shelves along the other side of the room. “And you young lady? Are you here for a wand as well?” Hermione whipped around, abashed to be caught snooping through the boxes.

She dipped subtly into a shy curtsey and stood beside her friend. “I’m Hermione Gr- err, Dumbledore?” she looked at Albus for confirmation. “I’ve been adopted.” She smiled sunnily, reaching out to shake the man’s hand bravely.

Garrick seemed taken aback by the young girl’s declaration. “Adopted you say? To this old coot?” he jabbed a thumb toward Albus, “it’s a pleasure, little lady.”

“Will I be getting a wand today?” Tom asked, in the quiet authoritative way he usually did to command attention onto himself. Mister Ollivander seemed to remember his job, and bumbled around a few shelves, stacking several long, thin boxes in his arms and propping them onto the already cluttered desk.

“A wand, especially my hand-crafted wands, chooses its owner.” The wander maker began to lecture as he opened the flap of a dusty, old box, revealing a long crooked red wand with frilly indentations at the grip. “There are magical properties within its core.” He pointed to the wooden tip of the wand. “Things like unicorn hair or a dragon’s heartstring, etcetera. Combined with magical properties of a specific type of wood, like Rosewood or Cherry, it creates a unique balance, giving the wand life, giving the wand an entity of its own,” he boasted with gusto. He handed Tom a wand cautiously. “Here, young man. Try this one.”

Tom, with a quirked brow, turned to Hermione and held the long wand unsurely in a loose grip. He felt something in his hand sting where he held the wood, it felt uncomfortable and heavy in his hands.

“Go on,” Albus encouraged. “Give it a wave, Mister Riddle.”

Hermione’s eyes turned wide as saucers as Tom flicked the wand uncertainly and a gust of wind, immersing from the wand itself it seemed, threw Tom back from where he stood into a far pile of empty boxes. The wand flew from his grip and clattered to the ground, a small plume of smoke rising from its tip. 

“Tom!” Hermione screeched, running toward him where Dumbledore was already helping him up. “Are you okay?!” he grumbled lowly to himself as he shook off their hands.

“I’m guessing that wasn’t the one, Mister Ollivander?” Tom said charmingly, his tone just a little too sweet. His scathing attitude was lost to anyone that didn’t know him as well as Hermione did, so she pinched the side of his arm in reproach.

“No, no, most certainly not.” Garrick muttered to himself as he put a few boxes back and revealed a few others.

This one, a shorter wand, with gleaming brown wood, and decorative vines wove around the base to the very tip, gleaming gold when you turned it. It was opulent, and garish, and without even needing to test it, Hermione knew it wasn’t going to work on him.

Tom flicked his wrist, tensing for impact again, except the wand didn’t throw him back.

Instead, a strong beam of yellow light flew from its tip, Ollivander ducked as the beam soared over his head and landed on the cushions of the lone chair sitting innocently at the corner and exploded! A loud _bang_ ricocheted throughout the small room, strips of severed cloth fluttered to the ground and an ashy silhouette painted the wall black where the chair once stood proud.

Before Tom could ‘innocently’ swish the wand again, Ollivander took it out of his grip before he’d create any other disaster.

“Let’s stay away from any unicorn cores then…” Ollivander muttered, boxing the wand away.

They were there for nearly a half hour, trying different wands. Long ones, short ones, curved ones, one with a hilt resembling a flower. Each one different, each one giving the same horrific, catastrophic result.

As Hermione wandered the aisles away from the front desk Tom had managed to turn to splinters after Wander # 8, she’d stomped off to search the shelves herself- adamant in her certainty that Mister Ollivander would never find a wand suitable for her temperamental friend.

_A wand chooses its master_ , she remembers Garrick saying.

Well, what does she know of Tom? She knows he’s the smartest boy she knows. He’s kind to her, takes care of her.

She perused a dusty shelf, layered alphabetically from the bottom up. Hundreds of tightly packed boxes put together like puzzle pieces. She walked along the wall, looking for anything that seemed interesting enough.

She knows that she can see his magic and he can see hers. It’s been that way since they were toddlers.

Turning to make sure that no one was watching, now that she knew Albus could see her glitter, she knew to be more careful, so she released a few trickles of glimmer from her palms. She stared at the floating shimmering magic flume upwards and swirl around her head, released for the first time in a while. Around her, boxes levitated at her command, lifted by the small specks and floating around the boxes until they fell back down around her.

She knew Tom was tenacious at times when it suited him or uncaring at others. She knew Tom was sentimental, keeping her old toys or newspaper clippings of an important date to them. He kept the diary she’d given to him, but was too afraid to write anything and mar the supple, soft pages. He held her hand, and kissed her bruises, and knew how to braid her hair because she was shit it at.

She knew he hated when she cursed, but didn’t mind when she did so in anger.

As she walked, she closed her eyes and imagined him.

“Ouff.” She cried, toppling over a small chair hidden in the back of the shop. Tucked between two shelves, pushed up against the wall sat a small uncluttered desk where a dusty yellow lamp hung, brightly illuminating its contents. Resting innocently beside what looked like a cork screw and a whittling knife, sat a box like all the others in the shelves behind her.

The glimmer steadily releasing from her palms floated out of her control towards the closed box until it hummed around wands on the desk, vibrating in near urgency.

Unable to contain her curiosity, and turning around to make sure no one was looking, she noticed she had accidentally wandered into a private office.

She snatched the box and opened it. Inside, nestled in a cushion of soft velvet like all the others was a wand.

It was bone white, the tip nearly a needle point. The base was thick white wood, if you squinted it looked like the skeleton of a bird, an eagle or- she assumed since the recently written label read _phoenix feather_ \- a phoenix. As her finger caressed it, it seemed to hum warmly under her touch.

_This is it._

Sure to her very core that this was it, she ran out of the private room and back to the front of the hop and handed the wand to Tom, batting away another wand Ollivander held out to him.

“Try this one.” She said, picking the wand up and handing it to him, her magic shimmering around her excitingly.

Ollivander plucked the wand out of her hand and stared at Hermione crossly, “Young lady, underage children are not allowed to run around with wands. You could get seriously injured! How did you get this? My office was closed under lock and key.”

“I-I apologize, Mister Ollivander. But the door was wide open.” She said, confused.

Ollivander stared down at extremely potent wand he held in his hand. Its power was resisting in his hands, nearly burning him to the touch where he held it. It was 13 ½ inches, made of Yew with a single Phoenix feather. He eyed the girl, her expression unyielding.

Eyeing the wand and the eager girl warily, he handed the wand to the boy.

The second Tom’s fingers touched the wand, a blinding, beautiful white light released from his hands, branding the wooden handle with his print. A gust of wind, warm and humming with vibrancy flew around Tom, disrupting his jacket and mussing his hair.

Just like he’d witnessed many times before as a wizard is united with his wand, the air seemed to hum with static. Ollivander smiled at the invisible wind release around the boy and his new wand.

To Tom’s, Hermione’s, and Albus’ eyes however, the wind was not _invisible_. The static hum as the wand was united with its master was not quiet. Black smoke poured out of Tom’s feet like an inky fog and swirled around him, rising higher and higher in density until he was nearly invisible to their eyes. His eyes were rounded in shock as he felt his arms hum with faint electricity all the way up to his shoulder, his wand took in his magic, black smoke flew from the air straight into the needle-point tip of his new wand until there was nothing left to give and the wand had sucked it all in like a vacuum.

“I knew it!” She hooped and hollered. She ran to Tom and hugged him.

“Amazing.” Albus exclaimed, unconcerned that Garrick had not been able to witness the same thing he had. He’d seen it before a few times. Once as he’d claimed his own wand, and another when his sister had.

Tom Riddle would truly be an exceptional student, and Hermione as well if the vibrant swirls of magic surrounding her was anything to go by.

“Can I hold it?” Hermione asked, fascinated with the new toy, eager to analyze it better under the sunlight streaming through the open window.

Before the adults could stop the underage child from taking the wand- a newly imprinted wand at that- Tom had handed Hermione his newly imprinted wand.

“No!” Albus shouted, reaching toward the children to push them away from the inevitable blast.

Garrick threw himself to the floor, but instead of the tell-tale explosion both adults were preparing for, the wand _hummed_.

A small gust of wind, smaller than Tom’s but there nonetheless, blew around Hermione as a soft light passed between her palm and the handle of the wand.

“Impossible.” Garrick whispered, white as a sheet, eyes bright as he witnessed the one-in-a-million possibility happening right in front of him. Something in the air shifted.

“Has this ever happened?” Dumbledore began to ask. Unseen to Garrick’s eyes, a small trickle of golden light evacuated into the needle-point tip of the 13 ½ inch Yew wand. Smaller than the amount that fell from Tom, the golden magic poured into the wand and abruptly stopped. A warm tingling began at Hermione’s palm where she held the wand and trickled up to her elbow.

“Not possible… Never in all my years…” he muttered, shocked. Watching as the wind slowly died down and Hermione’s magic once more retreated.

“They’ve double imprinted.” Garrick said, verbally stating Albus’ suspicions. “Do you know how uncommon that is, Albus?!”

The sharing of one wand- a double imprint, and in less than five minutes no less- was a one in a million chance.

The children were unaware of the absolute rarity they’ve just experienced as they stood in the corner of the shop chatting on about Tom’s new wand.

 “We have to owl the ministry.” Garrick mumbled absently, watching Tom and Hermione effortlessly pass the wands between one another as they inspected it with grins on their faces. “We have to alert the ministry, they’d need to know that these children are soulma-”

“No.” Dumbledore hushed, quick to stop Garrick’s words. “No one will know of this. These children are too young to know this significance.” He turned back to the children, giggling amongst themselves. “They will figure it out in due time. After all, after what I’ve seen of them… so trusting in one another, it was bound to happen.”

Garrick nodded, trusting his old professor’s judgment to keep this quiet. “Curious indeed how these things happen. I think we must expect great things from these two, Albus…great things indeed… However…if the wand chooses the wizard, and his has undoubtedly chosen her as it’s mistress, what will happen when she chooses her _own_ wand when she comes of age?”


	9. Chapter 9

_September, 1938_

A train whistle shrilled loudly inside the half-empty station. Men were bustling about through the station’s platforms, going about their day to day business. Women loaded with heavy brown paper bags filled with groceries wove through the throng of hasty men. The entire, mind numbingly bleak, ordeal was a direct contrast to the absolute wonderful chaos of Diagon Alley.

Tom grit his teeth as an older man accidentally knocked his briefcase against the back of Hermione’s knees.

“Sorry, girly!” the indifferent adult yelled over his shoulder as he fumbled into the pockets of his trousers for a watch.

Hermione rolled her eyes over her shoulder towards Tom. Quick as a flash, after making sure Dumbledore was preoccupied with procuring their tickets, a thin jet of black smoke wove through the crowd of travelers like a hissing snake, searching out its target with pinpoint precision.

A sharp bark of pain was hear over the bumbling of tourists and travelers. A few people shifted along the platform, parting the way, exposing that same man, clutching his knee in pain, his briefcase fallen to the ground, open, exposing the cluttered paperwork inside. A sharp gust of cold wind from a departing train scattered loose pages along the ground. The frantic man fell to his hands and knees, fumbling to pick up the sheets before they flew away.

Tom smirked as the crowd pointed and laughed at the red faced man.

“That wasn’t very nice.” Hermione whispered harshly, cuffing him in the back of the head. Tom turned and glared at her, rubbing where she’d hit prudishly. “You know Alb- my _father_ \- can see your magic! It’s completely reckless to behave in your usual tyranny in front of him,” she whispered harshly.

A far off metro signaled imminent departure again and Hermione turned to watch it set off, a wanderlust look upon her face. Her hand was clasped tightly around her pink book-bag.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mi,” he said once the train left and her attention was back on him. He took her hand, soft and a bit clammy in his, and held it tight as he led her toward the ticket booth. “The poor man must have tripped on a shoelace or something.”

Hermione glared at Tom, wrenching her hand away and pushing him on the shoulder. “You’re a right and proper bully, Tom Riddle. Never mind Billy Stubbs! You’re inherently worse.”

“Oy!” he barked, clutching his chest in false hurt, “and manhandling me makes _you_ such a _tender_ chum?” Tom grinned at her annoyed huff.

 “ _Manhandling_.” She muttered, staring him down with a cold side eye, “one must actually be a _man_ to deserve that depiction, don’t you think?”

“I-” Tom froze, his eyes narrowing at her direct insult he only narrowly missed. Her magic swirled around her fingertips like happy little bubbles, and it wasn’t until then he noticed she was fighting a smirk.

The reason for her anger forgotten, Tom smirked, grabbing the edge of her orphanage issued sweater and pushing her away hard. “Bugger off, pest.”

She stuck her tongue out impishly as she caught herself, holding back a giggle as she nearly tripped into their cart of luggage. At the sight of Dumbledore approaching, Tom wiped the smile from his face and stiffened, drawing his friend near by the sleeve of her arm.

“Here are your tickets, children.” Dumbledore waved them the three tickets with a dramatic flourish as he drew closer, not noticing the way Tom hovered over his friend like a protective lion.

“It’s a blank parchment.” He said, eyes furrowing as Dumbledore handed him his ticket

His eyes lit up with a twinkle as he handed Hermione her ticket. “Is it?”

**_London to Hogwarts_ **

**_For ONE WAY travel_ **

**_Platform 9 3/4_ **

Where before the small parchment was dull and ordinary, it now reflected gold, shining magnificently in their hands as it caught the lamps lights. The raised calligraphy was branded in expensive red ink that gleamed as you read it. The ticket was soft to the touch, yet as he held it in his hands, fingers pressed tightly into the edges, it would not bend or crumple.

“How can there be three _quarters_ of a platform? It doesn’t make sense!” Hermione exclaimed from beside him, pulling his arm down to make sure they had the same ticket.

Albus merely waved a finger and plucked the ticket from their hands, sprouting philosophical nonsense about how ‘nothing can be _whole_ without being made up of _parts_ ’ as he led them toward the end of the platform.

As they walked, Dumbledore pointed to one of the brick awnings along the pathway where a small crowd of people with trunks similar to Tom’s stood, “ninth beam down, children! Off we go!”

He led Hermione forward, weaving through the throngs of people, leaving Tom to handle the task of pushing the armed cart.

The professor had cast a spell on the bulk of luggage, and Tom found himself pushing a crate of feather light trunks and boxes.

Boxes were piled high with books, quills, and extraordinary things like _dragon_ _hide_ gloves. There was a whole trunk dedicated o housing his new school robes and uniforms- it contained more clothes than that stingy Orphanage ever provided him.

“Bloody business men.” Tom grumbled as he had to wait for the crowd to disperse to properly steer his cart.

“Tom!” Hermione called out with a glare, tapping her foot a few yards away. “Do hurry up! I want to get there _early_!”

“Bossy, frizzy haired girl,” he grumbled once more. “I’m coming!” he called out, _accidentally_ ramming the end of his cart into the legs of a man that wouldn’t get out of the way. He yelped and Tom schooled his features. “Sorry, sir,” he retorted, uncaring of his glare. “I didn’t see you there.” The business man sneered at the short boy and walked away.

“They’re going _through_ the wall!” Hermione whispered once he finally reached them, retracting herself from her new father to stand at Tom’s side. “Look!”

Just as she pointed, a boy about their age with short dark hair leaped in front of the wall. He ran straight at it, cart and all, before his body was enveloped.

“Curious.” He said, wary of the crowd of adults now gathered around them to speak with their chaperone. “…how do you think the brick absorbs him like that?”

Hermione turned to him, her bushy hair held back with the purple clip he’d nicked from a shop a few months ago. She smiled widely in amusement, buckteeth on display for the world to see. “Well that’s a silly question don’t you think? Magic, of course!”

It _was_ a rather silly question, he reflected.

###

Inside the brilliant train Hermione and Tom sat demurely within a comfortable cabin. Their trunks were stowed away, and Hermione had her nose pressed into one of the school books he’d been loaned from the store on a favor for Dumbledore. The Deputy Headmaster was currently making rounds within the train, greeting his students and speaking privately with professors.

The wheels squeaked through the half open window as the train rolled through grassy hills of rural England toward the Scottish highlands.

Hermione caught herself between staring at the bewitching countryside and its lush rolling hills to the captivating pages of Tom’s _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_ text.

“I’m glad things worked out well,” Tom said with eyes closed. He was reclining against his seat, legs sprawled as if he’d owned this compartment. He made a good show of pretending he wasn’t a nervous ball of excitement, but the steady rocking of the train and lulling sound of heavy wheels put him into a rare state of calm.

Hermione hummed, not understanding what he was trying to say, but she knew him well enough to know he’ll complete his train of thought on his own time.

A group of children their age chatted loudly as they passed Tom and Hermione’s open cabin door. Their laughter echoed long after they’d gone.

Tom peeked an eye open, frowning at the side door and its empty hallway beyond it. “I would have been sitting in here by myself. I would have shopped through Diagon Alley without company. I would have been thrown into a new world alone.”

“And if I hadn’t been a witch you’d have left me at the orphanage and forgotten me eventually, I presume.” She said, turning a page as she pursed her lips in stubborn haughtiness.

 “If you were normal- a muggle- it would have been impossible to explain these things to you. Explain magic. Dumbledore said no one outside of this world can know. It’s against the law. I expect after a few years we would have lost interest in each other’s lives. After I turned seventeen I’d have left the orphanage and never looked back... You would have grown to resent me. Perhaps, maybe, I’d have wondered from time to time about that bushy haired ninny who followed me around as a child…” he quieted down, teasing tone lost as he watched her searchingly. “A wasted seven-year friendship it would have turned out to be. If you’d been a muggle.”

She frowned, quickly shutting the book, holding her place with a spare hair ribbon. She leaped off the cushioned seat and jumped into his side, trying to dispel the sudden moroseness in his tone. She latched onto his sweater-clad arm and curled around him, turning to stare up at him through her messy fringe. “’Bushy haired ninny?’”

He sneered, pawing her face away from his playfully as she attempted to nuzzle his arm. “You should be glad I’m not calling you _bucked_ _beak_.”

“Bucked beak!” Hermione shouted, throwing her head back in laughter. She tugged his arm closer to her happily. Her two front teeth poked through her smiling lips proudly. “That’s a new one, innit, _snakeface_?” she hissed, a poor attempt to imitate the sounds he makes when conversing with the slippery reptiles.

He rolled his eyes and sunk back into his soft seat. Hermione snuggled deeper into his side, quietly releasing a soft trickle of magic to levitate the book on the other bench back into her hands.

Over the rumbling of the train and Hermione’s steady breathing, Tom’s nerves revealed themselves once again.

She held his hand without saying a word.

###

Upon arriving at the castle, they were immediately separated.

Tom was lost to the crowd of wide-eyed First Years, and Hermione was lead toward the dining hall by her new father and an older man by the name of Armando Dippet.

If he hadn’t been introduced as Headmaster, she would have assumed him to be exactly like one of the Noble Kings she and Tom would read about in Fairytales.

Headmaster Dippet spoke to her as if she were a child, which admittedly she was, but he knew not of her intellect… nor would he, at least not until she had the chance to properly put her jaw back into place where it had fallen to the floor upon seeing her new home.

A right _castle_ it was, adorned with medieval gargoyles that turned to look at you when you moved! Lit torches illuminated ancient cobblestone halls and she itched to remove her Mary-Janes and feel the smooth, cool stone beneath her feet.

This was a far cry from Miss Cole’s bleak walls and unpolished wooden floorboards. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of Wool’s Orphanage in it. The atmosphere was dark and mysterious, the air inside smelled of old parchment and burning flames on a candelabra.

The ceiling inside of the Entrance Hall was too high to make out and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors. Dotted along the walls from floor to ceiling were giant portraits whose subjects _moved_ and _talked_ and walked about their scenery as if they were nothing but humans living inside.

It was brilliant, and magical, and for the briefest of moments she had forgotten she had been separated from Tom.

The older men spoke among themselves. Her father, (a title in which she was steadily becoming more accustomed to) patiently squeezed her hands as she stopped to peer into the curious portraits. He quickly stopped alongside her as the Headmaster kept walking toward the end of the entrance hall, not realizing that no one was following him as he spoke to empty air.

“They had been here as long as these walls have been up.” He nodded to a particular portrait of a smiling woman combing her hair. The woman in the portrait regally bowed her head to her father and smiled politely at Hermione. “They’ve seen numerous generations walk these very halls. Celesta here once had the unfortunate pleasure of catching me sneaking out after hours.”

The portrait smiled, and Hermione jumped like a startled cat as the painted woman spoke, setting her hairbrush down to lean closer to Hermione.

“A man of many secrets he is, dear.” The woman in the portrait bowed regally, picked up her medieval gowns and walked away toward the end of the frame, appearing inside the frame beside hers to converse with the portrait of a scowling man.

Hermione jumped again when her father pet her shoulder, trying to catch her attention. “Come, you’ll get a tour later. For now, however, we are late to the Sorting Ceremony.” His eyes twinkled as she stared up at him gobbersmacked.

Right before Hermione and her father entered the dining hall, she stood on her tippy-toes, searching for Tom’s familiar neat haircut within the congregated group of eleven-year-olds standing around four giant hour glasses.

Just as she was about to give up searching through the dozen or so unfamiliar children, she felt a cool grip on her ankle and looked down the find a thin plume of smoke swirling reassuringly at her feet.

###

“Hufflepuff!” A mangy old hat crowed loudly. A table near the middle, consisting exclusively of yellow and black school robes, cheered as the tiny redhead girl skipped her way to her new House’s table.

Alb- her _father_ , had taken to giving fun little facts about each house. The unpublished manuscript of _Hogwarts: A History, Edition 1_ he’d gifted her had mentioned several things, stating important characteristics it takes to make it into a designated house.

Hermione sat, at what she’d heard the professor’s call it, the Head table. Situated on a dais, elevated slightly for a good view of the entire dining hall, she sat nearest the edge in front of a rowdy table belonging to the students in-

“Gryffindor!” the hat cawed loudly for all to hear.

Beside her, her father clapped happily for each and every student, the delight and pride in his eyes never wavering as one by one the children were sorted into their respectful houses. The Gryffindor table in front of her cheered loudly, their hooting bordering rowdy as they accepted a young girl with open arms and wide grins.

Tom stood in the thinning crowd of students awaiting their turn to be sorted. They had locked eyes ages ago and his wouldn’t waver where she sat, primly watching the entire scene unfold, wondering where he would be sorted into.

He was nervous, she could feel it, see it in the tense way his shoulders hitched as the list of surnames steadily dwindled toward the letter R.

“Avery, Edmund.” The boy shook as he made his way to the crooked stool in front of the Head’s table.

“Slytherin!”

Just as Hermione was about to cheer for the unknown boy first to be sorted into the green and silver house, one of the older boys at the Gryffindor table below her hissed like a snake. Then another joined him. Soon enough the snake-like sound echoed louder and louder around the Great Hall as each house, minus Slytherin and most of Hufflepuff, joined in on the ridicule. The boy, Edmund Avery, marched toward his table with certainty, his eyes wide and frustrated at the open mockery they made of him in his new House.

The hissing ceased _immediately_ with a sharp glare from the Headmaster and the entire ordeal was over as soon as the next student clambered up to the stool and was admitted into Hufflepuff.

“Father.” Hermione inched closer across the large leather seat fit for a Queen. She leaned over the thick arm of her chair toward Dumbledore where he happily clapped. “Why did they hiss at him?”

Albus sighed, “I’m afraid, my dear, centuries of house rivalry has made the students callus toward their peers. Slytherin isn’t a very popular one in the minds of the student body, I’m afraid.”

 “Black, Cedrella.” The short professor with the long scroll called out once the previous student found her seat.

A thin girl with auburn hair and a pretty aristocratic face sat on the stool as if it were her throne. The hat was barely on her head when the thing yelled-

“Slytherin!”

One of the Gryffindors hissed again, but with a loud promise of detention from a student with a shiny gold badge, he stopped.

She furrowed her brows, another round of cheering interrupting her thought process for a moment. “But _why_?” she asked, returning to their previous subject once again after a few minutes of confused silence and mindless clapping. “They’re known for their cunning, their wit, aren’t they? Surely that’s an effective trait to have.”

 “Yes, indeed. Ambition is not a terrible thing at all.” A stout woman beside her father spoke up, “However, the house’s penchant for conceiving Dark Lords isn’t at all in popular regard, deary.”

Albus shot her an unapproving look, “Galatea, don’t put such things into her head.”

The woman, Galatea, reached over her father’s empty plate and offered Hermione a hand. “Galatea Merrythought at your service, sweetheart. Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Who might you be?”

“ _I’m_ Hermione Granger.” Hermione stated proudly, shaking Professor Merrythought’s hand. “Adoptive daughter of Albus Dumbledore. I’ll be turning ten years old in eighteen days.”

“My!” Professor Merrythought exclaimed at Hermione’s lengthy introduction. “Such character. Pleasure to meet you Miss Hermione. I’m sure you’ll-”

“Riddle, Tom.”

Hermione squeaked. Promptly turning away from Professor Merrythought midsentence.

She watched with glee as Tom walked up the few steps toward the used stood, where the professor was holding up the old hat.

He twisted in his eat and quickly shot her a glance. Hermione nodded encouragingly, knowing that his straight shoulders and faint smirk was actually masking his inner nerves.

Unthinkingly, she opened her fist and sent forth a faint trickle of gold glitter toward him. It barely reached passed her goblet before she felt her father’s firm hand on her wrist, stopping her magic from flowing across the raised table toward her best friend.

“Hermione, while I know you want to comfort your friend… displaying such power in a room of hundreds of watching eyes isn’t very wise.” His gaze shot toward someone sitting to the right of the Headmaster fleetingly, though from her angle, she couldn’t see who.

“But I thought you and Tom were the only ones that could see. No one will know.” She sat back frustrated, wary of Tom’s tense shoulders. “Please? It makes him calm.”

Her father looked into her eyes with fleeting remorse. He let go of her wrist with a soft pat once he was sure she wasn’t going to release her magic again. “It is unwise to underestimate a witch or wizard or the power they may or may not hold.” He said cryptically, quickly dropping the subject as the Sorting Hat was dropped onto her best friend’s head.

The hollow eyes of the brown hat squeezed shut as its tip leaned forward, hunching over as if thinking deeply. Tom turned toward the end of her table, searching her out under the wide rim of the floppy hat.

Just like she’d done once many years ago, under intense distress due to the strange man in the orphanage touching her, she willed Tom to hear her words.

_Good luck! Good luck! Good luck!_

Tom smiled faintly, eyes clearing of nerves as he watched her with some calculation. Understanding that her words had somehow reached him, she grinned back.

“Slytherin!” The hat shouted after a minute of silence.

Hermione climbed onto her chair and stood, hooting with glee.

Unconcerned by the confused stares she was garnering from the students sitting closest to her by the Head’s table.

Her father clapped with the same amount of pride and respect as he had for the other students. The Slytherin table clapped respectfully, though not as obvious as the other three Houses would for their own, and greeted Tom into the midst with tentative handshakes and wary smiles.

Tom sat at the end of the table across the room from her. She didn’t have to think twice when a tingle in the back of her head rose, bringing quiet words in the back of her mind to her awareness.

_Thanks..._

The words hissed through her very soul, sounding more snake-like than human. She grinned at Tom across the room and he dipped his head in her direction with a gleam of cunning triumph in his eye.

###

“What is this?” She asked the thousandth question since arriving into her father’s chambers.

She made her round through the open room, pointing out things she’d never seen before, asking questions when she couldn’t figure it out on her own.

Being the Deputy Headmaster, his residence was along a brightly lit corridor just beneath the base of Gryffindor tower. Albus Dumbledore’s residence was hidden behind an unmarked door whose knob revealed itself with a special password. Just beyond his desk, to the left of the windows were two doors leading to their respective bedrooms.

The walls of his office were pale stone reaching up to a low ceiling, the ground beneath her bare feet were covered with dozens of colorful ornate rugs. There was a low coffee table in the middle of the room surrounded by mix matched couches. The windows ran alongside one of the far walls, his desk the centerpiece displayed before the twisting mosaic of colorful glass.

Albus looked up from the stacks of Gryffindor class schedules he’d been reorganizing. He smiled fondly at her inquisitive look from across the room. “That, my dear, is a phoenix egg.”

“A _phoenix_? Like the mythical bird?” she gasped, sanding on tiptoes to press her nose closer to the small nest.

“The very same, my dear.”

“Hm.”

Currently, she stood in front of an ornate stone pedestal. On top of it was a stone carved bowl filled with hot stones that glowed red with heat. A large egg sat nestled inside, red and black splatters decorated the thick golden shell.

She turned away, and once again, something new caught her eye by the lit fireplace.

“What’s this?” She asked, sipping her fingers into soft silvery powder contained within a wide mouthed vase. She examined the fine ashes in her hands as it glittered like crushed diamonds, not nearly as brilliantly as her own gold magic, but dazzling just the same. Cautiously, she sniffed it then promptly wrinkled her nose at the stale, foul scent.

Albus looked up again, scribbling onto the parchment with a large feather quill without looking at down at the parchment. “Floo powder.”

Hermione rubbed the soot from her fingertips onto her new skirts, smearing the silver ashes onto the soft, dark blue material. “What’s it made of?”

For the first time all night, her father did not have an answer. He scratched at his head as he glanced toward the glowing fireplace. “Er, well. Floo, I suppose.”

Hermione turned around, her smirk eerily reminiscent to Tom’s. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Not a clue, my dear. In fact I don’t think anyone exactly knows what floo powder is made of. Let alone who makes it.” He said, eyes twinkling as she giggled.

Her giggles ceased immediately as another question came to mind.

“What’s a floo?”

###

Across the castle inside of the dungeons, Tom sat alone on his brand new bed. Velvet green curtains encased his four poster bed alongside three others, each of which were occupied with three first years by the names of Abraxas Malfoy, Edmund Avery, and Percival Parkinson.

They seemed to know one another, long-time friends too judging by the way they argued and joked informally.

Malfoy and Parkinson bent their heads over something called a Quidditch Magazine while Avery organized his books near his bedside.

Tom turned away from where the three boys sat whispering conspiringly together, outright right ignoring him as if he weren’t even there.

After dinner, the first year Slytherins has been ushered into their newly appointed common room where boys and girls chatted amiably. At the far corner, a group of older kids sat huddled around analyzing every individual first year as they entered. The females of the common room, few as they were compared to the dozen or so distant males, took it upon themselves to entrap the only two female first years, Cedrella Black and Millicent Mulciber, with open arms into their catty group.

One quick mandatory introduction to the room of students of his name, parentage, and status as an Orphan was enough to outcast him.

Curfew was an hour ago and he couldn’t find himself to fall asleep with three strangers in such lose proximity. Not that he would fall asleep, the bed was soft as mush and his mind kept returning to Hermione. Was she sleeping already? Where was her room? Did she stay inside the Gryffindor tower her father was supposedly in charge of supervising?

He closed his eyes and scowled as another round of low chuckles rang in the room. The sound of their laughter carried loudly along the marble walls and concrete floors.

Hermione would have hated it in here, Tom thought as he tried to get his head comfortable on the thick feather pillow.

He shifted in his large bed and turned on his side to stare out into the window beside his bed. The only window, a whole wall in itself, at the far end of his dormitory, held view of the inside of the Great Lake. Green algae tinted the Common Room green from the dying sunlight. Small bubbles rose from the corner of the window right beside his face as a few strange looking fish floated by.

Annoyed with the incessant chitter, he got up without looking toward the boys, and shut the lightweight green curtains around his bed harshly, trying his best at tuning out the boys as they began to whisper back and forth.

“…can’t believe…”

“…a mudblood in our midst…”

“…wait until my father hears about this…”

“…what kind of mudblood name is _Riddle_ anyways?”

“…you think it’s too late to switch rooms with Lestrange and Nott?”

He sneered, hands shaking as the boys ridiculed him, for once grateful that Hermione wasn’t there.

 _This was supposed to be a good start,_ he thought angrily. _This was supposed to be a new world, I was supposed to fit in!_

Black rage filled him as the laughter from the boys in the bed beside him rang loudly in the room once again.

He reached his hand out where his wand lay hidden beneath his pillow.

 _I have just as much right to be here than they do,_ hethought _, I’m just as much a wizard._ In his anger, his black smoke oozed out of his fingertips like leaking sludge, tainted and magnificent. It wrapped around the wand greedily, the white wood lapping it up until it all but disappeared into the sharp tip. He gave the wand a cautious flick, imagining the faces of his bedfellows twisting in fear at Tom’s power.

However, as he flicked the wand, nothing happened. The magic didn’t zoom out, nor did his roommates find themselves suddenly screaming.

Tom’s temple broke out into a slight sheen of sweat as he forced his magic out of himself, into the wand like he’d done at Ollivander’s, when he’d make his wand light up brilliantly with nothing but a thought.

The thick smoke roamed around his wrist like a heavy cloud, wrapping around the wand thickly until his hand all but disappeared beneath the fog.

Like sticking jelly into a straw, his magic did not budge or bend to his whim.

Snarling and uncomfortable with the weak display, he tossed the wand away from him. The smoke retracted from the air and returned back into his hands like a slinking slave to its master.

He laid back, getting comfortable for any type of sleep to take him, wondering if Hermione was enjoying herself with the lions.

 _Hermione would have hated it in here_ , Tom thought as he fell asleep. The black smoke swirled around him protectively, coiling around his thin body so tightly that the sound of the boy’s rancorous laughter all but faded away.

###

The next morning, a bright and promising Monday, Hermione waved happily at the curious eyes staring back at her.

Inside what was called the Gryffindor common room, her father gave a brief and welcoming speech as was customary for the Head of House to do at the beginning of term. But, rather than paying attention to his encouraging words and list of office hours he held, the students were watching Hermione owlishly.

Surely this wasn’t the first time a professor brings along their child to work?

Cheerily, she waved at one of the older kids, two of which startled in surprise before cautiously waving back.

“And finally, as I’m sure you are all curious to know. This is my daughter, Hermione. She will be staying here at Hogwarts until she starts next year.”

Hermione grinned, pleased at the welcoming hellos and waves.

There was a whole whole day ahead of her full of exciting things. First she was going to shadow her father in his classes, and perhaps Professor Merrythought’s as well, to get a glimpse at exactly what it is he does for a living.

Not to mention, the entire Library at her disposal. A whole castle to explore with no rules or regulations to uphold, or chores or duties or bullies to hide away from!

She’s going to _love_ it here!


	10. Chapter 10

_...three months later..._

_December, 1938_

Tom long stopped wondering why he couldn’t see anyone’s magic, assuming it was only because he and Hermione, and with the begrudging addition to her adoptive father, they were just special. Two rare and magnificent jewels among a plethora of unpolished stones.

 So far, Hogwarts was exceedingly disappointing him.

With a heavy sigh Tom glared down at the auditorium of school children surrounding the tall podium the elderly professor stood behind.

Tom was sitting in one of the lowest pews just above a group of first year giggling Ravenclaw girls hunched over their unopened texts and whispering into one another’s ears.

 _You would think the smart house would contain a brighter lot_ , he’d once complained to Hermione. But the people around him offered no other forms of entertainment and there was nothing extraordinary about the classroom; no moving frames or floating candles to amuse him. The tall marble walls and spindling staircase leading up to the rest of the vacant rows for students to fill held no attention.

His mind wandered to what Hermione might be doing. Months living in such a big castle had begun to turn him into stress induced panics over what she was doing, who she was speaking with, if she had remembered to eat her breakfast.

 It was Wednesday, so she was probably trailing her father around the Transfiguration corridor all day. Did she find these uninteresting students amusing? Did she remember not to touch the doorknobs? So many different sticky hands, who knows that they’ve been touching.

Was she getting picked on?

Tom’s quill, pristinely groomed and the finest thing he ever owned- a gift from Hermione purchased with her father’s money- bent precariously in his grip. The thin plastic of the dark feather’s spine creased under his thumb.

No, he thought, easing his hand off the quill before it completely broke apart. Hermione wasn’t one to let another get to her. She was likely nagging an older student to pay attention to her father’s lecture right about now.

The boy next to him, Malfoy, has his wand held up lazily. A shiny gold watch adorned his thin, lax wrist. The glare from the sun glinted off the diamond encrusted face and shone in Tom’s eye.

The professor stood at the front, watching everyone with amusement, not expecting for the students to get the new spells of the week correct and on the first try.

And just like anyone else but he, Hermione, and perhaps Dumbledore when he deigned it appropriate, no magic came out of Malfoy’s wand when he muttered the incantation.

As his classmates held their wands and frowned in concentration, trying to levitate white feathers, Tom stared at their hands, their fingertips, their wands, wondering why the smoke swirling around him was so visible while others were _not_. Not even the professor, a gratingly cheery old man with skin as wrinkly as an elephant’s arse, had visible magic.

Beside him Abraxas Malfoy sneered smugly over the brim of the floating feather, glaring pointedly at Tom’s inactivity.

Tom didn’t have to hear the words, he could already imagine the sniveling boy’s sodding comments.

“ _Can you even cast a simple spell, mudblood_?” or “ _afraid of your own wand, mudblood_?” or “ _too stupid to understand the concept of levitation, mudblood_?”

Tom curled his toes inside of his black loafers, agitation bubbling at the boy’s silent, pointed glare.

Resting beside a tattered Charms book and his pale wand, the long feather sat unmoving. He whispered the incantation without any of the wand movements, momentarily forgetting the wand beside his right hand as his finger crooked toward the feather, pointing upward to direct the feather.

“Wingardium Leviosa,” Tom whispered quietly. Then, like an unstoppable gust of roaring wind, smoke flew from his palms and rushed toward the feather so quickly he was thrust into the back of his seat. He let out a graceless “ _ouff_ ” as his back hit the hard bench.

The smoke was a ceaseless blast, aiming at everything and nothing.  Beside him Abraxas was knocked out of his seat, blonde hair billowing backward as gusts of air hit him, books and papers flying and swirling like a small tornado limited to their section of the room. The chatting girls in the front squealed when their hair flew into their faces.

“Mister Riddle!” the professor called from the front of the room. The black smoke was so thick and cloying he couldn’t see past the first row of desks. Malfoy stood back up, hair tangled, eyes wide and fearful.

Tom’s eyes widened, remembering the one and only time this has ever happened, when Hermione was upset and his magic had created a thick solidifying wall. A bright pink light hit the dense smoke like colorful lightning, and tom felt the ricochet in his bones.

“Messer’s Riddle and Malfoy! Lower your wands at once!”

_Stop!_

Immediately the smoke dispersed, swirling back into the stone floor like evaporating water and congealing at his feet. 

Tom looked up at the three students nearest to him stuck within his whirlwind. Malfoy and the two Ravenclaws stared up at him. Two sets of eye aghast and frightened, the other curious.

The Professor was grinning, like a proud parent, as he clapped.

“A marvelous shield you’ve throne my boy! Don’t know how you came across the incantation from a simple _Wingardium,_ but marvelous none the less-” Tom tuned the prattling man out, his chattering gathering too much attention to himself. He sat back down and did not flinch as the professor cast a spell to right all upturned books and chairs within his zone. Like a perfect bubble of chaos, the two Ravenclaws, Malfoy, and Riddle’s desks were an utter disaster. Parchment and quills were torn and bent, books were flipped to odd pages, and the hair on their heads were mussed beyond belief.

The rest of the class was exactly the same as it been before his magic went out of control. Many eyes were staring at Tom curiously, others were whispering.

He could almost hear Billy’s voice. _Freak_. _You’re a freak_.

“That’s enough adventure for one day! Alright, everyone! Bask to your casting! Wingardium Leviosa, if you please!”

The students were slow to follow direction, as one by one, they looked around the room in confusion.

“Sir…” a portly Hufflepuff from the opposite end of the classroom spoke up. “Our feathers…”

“What? Speak up Mister Diggle, we’re wasting classroom time and-”

“But, _sir_ ” a Gryffindor girl stressed, pointing to the ceiling of the room. Every first year looked up, including Tom.

Hovering midair, near the rafters of the room, floated every single white feather held up with the thinnest strands of black smoke invisible to all but one.

_“Are those our-”_

_“How are they all floating?!”_

_“Is Riddle-”_

Professor Finnegan looked back at Tom, who was still marveling at the sight of nearly fifty feathers floating, apparently by his command. He looked down at Tom’s wandless hand. Was he…? He decided to test the theory.

“Tom… try lowering them.”

Tom’s eyes furrowed, oblivious to the awed looks on his classmates, and with great concentration, he feathers plucked down and back to each student’s desk. A slight sheen of sweat gathered at Tom’s neck and he scowled when everyone turned to look at him.

_“How did you do that?!”_

_“You’re wandless! No first year has ever done wandless magic!”_

_“Can you teach me next, Tom?”_

_“Yeah, Tom! Teach us!”_

“Extraordinary…” the professor whispered as he and the other children gawked at the scowling boy, “Merrythought will be beside herself…”

#

“ _Defense_ Club?!” Hermione shrieked, as he fumbled to help clasp her winter cloak as they walked toward the front entrance to the castle. “And what, pray tell, will you be defending yourself against?”

Tom shrugged, nonchalantly twirling his wand in his hand. “That ghastly head of hair you’ve got most likely, if you don’t settle down. You know it gets all _prickly_ when you’re agitated.”

She scowled, feeling the roots of her curly hair where it, indeed, was tingling in her sudden annoyance at him. It wasn’t _her_ fault! Fist years were rarely, if ever, allowed into the defense club! That was a strict third year and up _only_ club.

Her agitation with Professor Merrythought’s reckless proposal to admit him into the dangerous club was dulled for the moment as the giant wooden doors opened up to a white wonderland. The courtyard leading to the East exit for the Great Lake was covered in freshly fallen snow.

December 19th brought forth the first fall of winter snow- cold powder fell from the sky onto her outstretched hands and tangled with gold magic. Tom stood beside her, a hovering sentinel, attempting a warming charm on her for the first time.

“Hold still, Mi.” He grumbled, swishing his wand to and fro at her back as she jumped to catch the snowflakes. “I’ve never done this spell and-”

“Never done the spell? I thought you were the all-powerful Tom Riddle! Youngest defense club member in a century, they say… yet you can’t cast a simple warming charm?” She goaded with a giggle. “Honestly, Tom, you’re worse than a mother hen. I’m _fine_. It’s just a bit of snow, nothing to fuss abou-” She snapped her mouth shut as the spell took hold. Immediately her toes warmed within the thick wool socks, heat crept all the way to the top of her hooded head until the roots of her curly hair stood on end in tingly comfort. The cool air that clung to her robes and sweater leeched the morning’s frost and was replaced with fiery heat. Like sitting by a warm fire, her skin began to flush within the spell’s bubble. “Well then,” she backtracked, scowling at his smug look. “You won’t be getting a ‘thank you’ with _that_ arrogance.”

Tom scoffed and took her by the end of her Father’s borrowed red and gold scarf, leading her like a pup to the trees near the Black Lake.

The students, younger and upper years alike, took to the lake for a morning of supervised ice skating along the iced lake surface. Rolando Hooch, a seventh year Gryffindor Quidditch player, watched over the students with a vigilant eye as he flew above them on his broom.

“So did you bring it then?” Hermione asked once Tom had cleared a patch of ground for them to sit on.

“Bring what?” he teased, and smacked her hand away before she could pinch his arm. “You have no patience, d’you know that.” He reached into his robes for the long forgotten black diary she’d given him for his eleventh birthday earlier that year. “I’ve done it. Finnegan was all too ready to help ever since that display in his class last week. Thinks I’ve got _potential._ ” He handed her a short quill, its feathers impeccably groomed considering it was lost within his pocket all morning.

“Potential for evil, probably.” She huffed, and squealed when he gave a light pinch to her neck.

She snatched his diary and turned to the first page, feeling the thrum of something _other_ bounce around within the blank parchments. Whatever spell he’d cast had encased his magic and woven into the very fibers of the blank parchments; her magic reacted accordingly and flicked at the leather bound diary curiously.

“It won’t write back,” he said with an annoyed huff as she pose to write. “Finnegan said I can use some kind of enchantment like the ones that magical portraits have that make ‘em able to talk back to us, but I haven’t figured that part out yet. Only magical painters know the enchantment, and Hogwarts doesn’t exactly have a magical painter on hand. It _does_ disappear after you dot the end of the sentence. No one would be able to see anything I write in it unless I want them to.”

Tom watched the way she concentrated- the way her tongue poked out between two overgrown front teeth. Her brows, unplucked and misshapen, furrowed in concentration as she scratched at the blank page with his quill. Hermione, unaware of the brief expression of calculation on Tom’s face, turned the diary towards him, and his mechanical interest was broken. He leaned close, hand flattened onto the hem of her robes to keep from touching a patch of snow on the ground, and read over her shoulder.

_My name is Hermione Granger-Dumbledore._

The dark ink swirled along the page, each letter vanishing one by one.

_ger-Dumbledore._

“Wicked.” She whispered near worshipful as the page slowly turned blank once more.

The laughter of children a few yards off momentarily brought her out of her reverie. “What’s the spell to bring the words back? _Aparecium_?” she remembered the entire  Book of Spells by Miranda Goshawk only one month into her stay. Since Tom was in school from morning to midday, and her father was teaching most hours, she was left on her own to spend her time however she wished. In the library. Exactly how she preferred it.

Tom grinned, a manic twist of his lips that looked positively smug if it weren’t for the glaze of happiness in his eyes she could spot a mile away. “That’s what _you_ would think. Really, any _ordinary_ witch or wizard would assume that’s the incantation. You can say _Aparecium_ until you’re blue in the face but it won’t work.” He rested his elbow on his knee and planted his chin on his fisted hand in mock contemplation, “I thought you’d be smarter than that, really.”

She snapped the diary closed and gave him a good whack along the shoulder with it. “Not only is that arrogance unappreciated, but it’s _unbecoming_. What’s the spell?”

“You want to know the secret?” She nodded furiously and he beckoned her closer. “There is no revealing spell.” He snatched the diary from her hand and guffawed at her incredulous face.

“But you said you can’t reveal unless-”

“-unless I want them to, quite right. But right now, it doesn’t _become_ me to show you what’s inside. A bit of mystery to keep you on your toes. It’ll do you good for a bit of homework. You’ll figure it out the enchantment I made soon enough I suppose.”

She leveled him with an unamused glare.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes, and huffed. Hermione grinned in triumph. “I’ll tell you only if you stop trying to hold my sleeve in public.”

“Are you embarrassed to be seen hanging on to a ten year old?” she teased. “You know the _only_ reason I hold you sleeve is because _you_ used to insist on it when we were at the orphanage! _‘Hold onto my shirt, Min.”_ she mocked with a laugh. “ _I need to know you’re near, Min.’ Min, there’s lighting, stay close. Min, there’s a lot of people, hold onto my-_ ”

“Yes, I get it.” he snapped. “But I’ll be twelve in a few weeks, practically an adult. I can’t be seen having a baby holding onto my shirt.” Tom glowered, pushing his hair back from his eyes and righting his cloak back to place.

Hermione fell onto her back in laughter, ignoring Tom’s mild panic as her hat fell off her head and her skin was exposed to the cold snow. “A baby, he called me!” she howled, taking no offense to the obvious jab. “You’re the one that frets!” she pointed to her hat in his hands as example.

Tom glared, that annoyed glint in his eye that was rarely ever focused in her direction. She rolled her eyes and immediately lost her humor.

“Just tell me the spell, Tom, honestly.”

He scowled, thrusting her hat back on for her, ignoring her knowing look.

“The ink is absorbed by my magic until it disappears into the pages. Whatever you write will stay within the magic, almost like an echo. Once you write enough into it, it can answer back with a likeness to your personality. Write in it enough, and soon it’ll be nagging me to do my homework and clean my socks. That is, if I figure out how to get that enchantment done.”

She pursed her lips, thoughts racing with countless possibilities that book can achieve.

If a book like this, a diary that can write back to you with _personality_ , was accessible to other children, how would things change? Imagine how children with lost parents could benefit. Imagine, losing a mother or father, but having their own personality and character tucked away into the pages of a diary, able to be called upon when advice was needed.

She wondered how muggleborns like her could benefit a friend in such a new world. Especially if the friend could be found on the pages of a book.

More than once, Hermione had realized that if not for Tom, she’d be like a lot of the other students she’d met.

Lonely. Quiet and clever, but isolated.

She might have the advantage of being Dumbledore’s daughter and living within the castle before getting sorted with students her own age, but eventually muggleborns will filter in with no prior exposure to magic.

Making friends was not easy, as so many people would have you believe. They’d fall to the foot of the hierarchy without even knowing one existed.

But if they had a friend to run to within the pages of books…

Hermione smiled, tugged at his sleeve to get his attention again, and ignored the annoyed look when he gestured pointedly at her hand on his wrist.

“Friendly Pages,” she said, “or alternatively, Books with Character. Up to you really, it’s your charm you and the Professor have done.”

“What?”

#

Tom and Hermione had the full support and approval of her father to continue with their project.

She’d pitched her theory to her father, how Friendly Pages might benefit many students, muggleborn and pureblood alike. It could be given to students who don’t necessarily seem like they’re getting along well in the unfamiliar place. It would help the transition, giving them a friend to talk to without really having to get out of their comfort zone until they’re ready to.

Their professionalism and determination reached the ears of Headmaster Dippet, who was delighted that two children within the walls of his very own school had thought up something so ingenious and practical. 

For the sole purpose of the project and on Dumbledore’s insistence after a private word, Headmaster Dippet had signed a form allowing Tom to stay at the school for Christmas Holidays to allow them uninterrupted time to work on the project.

Only, that is, if Mrs. Cole allowed it. Who, in her three months of bliss without the little troublemaker in her orphanage, sent her response of eager approval so quickly, Headmaster Dippet worried there wasn’t something he was missing between Tom and the matron’s sour relationship.

#

Hermione munched on her sandwich the next afternoon as she listened to Professor Merrythought boast over the achievements of last night’s Dueling Club competition.

“A friendly little duel between housemates. Of course Avery and Potter had to be separated, lord knows the dogma between lions and snakes are ever strong these days…” she trailed off, staring at the front page of the Daily Prophet her father was reading from. “Is there _any_ news at all over who is causing that ruckus in the West? The muggle war is brewing ever quickly, Albus.” The paper’s headlines were large bold font, the words _POLAND’S MASSACRE – MAGICAL SIGNATURE FOUND AMIDST?_ A picture of a blonde, hooded man, front and center.Albus didn’t seem to hear her, so intensely was he concentrated on his news.

Hermione ignored the adults in favor of petting the small kitten that wound its way around her legs. “Hello, little friend.” Hermione removed the top slice of bread on her sandwich and ripped the long slice of crispy bacon into chewable chunks for the kitten. “There you go, _ow!_ ” she hissed, snatching her fingers back from the kitten’s clamped jaw. Little tiny teeth tore through Hermione’s skin as she bled.

“Are you alright, Hermione?” her father asked, interrupting his conversation to tend to his hissing daughter. Hermione held up her finger, wet with her blood, bacon grease, and the cat’s saliva. “Ah. Mister Filch’s new pet.” The ever present twinkle in his eye all but gone and he stared down in disappointment at the smug animal clawing at Hermione’s chair. “Go find someone else to bother, Mrs Norris, there is no more food to be found here.”

The cat blinked up at Dumbledore, as if trying to read into his very character. Mrs Norris sniffed, turning away her small button nose as if she smelled something unpleasant, and ran away.

“Let me see it. Oh, there, there dear. Nothing but a scratch.”

“Take her to the Hospital Wing, Albus, who knows where that cat has been…” Merrythought said beside him. Dumbledore made to stand but Hermione stopped him.

“I have a meeting to see to in a few minutes,” her father frowned, “but I’m sure Tom would love to accompany you to the Hospital W-”

“-it’s okay, Father,” she interrupted, “I’ve already finished my lunch, and Tom said he would meet me in the library,” she lied. “I’ll find him and then go straight away.”

Her father smiled, eyes boring into her as if he knew her lie before it even came out of her mouth. Hermione’s heart thrummed anxiously, hoping he wouldn’t tell Tom that she’d been hurt by an innocent animal (again).

“The library you say?” he glanced at his pocket watch. “An interesting day to browse the Art History corridor in the Reference Section, don’t you think?”

Confused by his strange dismissal, she nodded and got up to leave.

#

She didn’t go to the Hospital Wing, because by the time she glanced down at her finger again, the bleeding had stopped and the scratch could easily be waved off as a papercut.

The library, as always, greeted her with a familiar and soothing scent of old parchment and leather. So close to Christmas hols, the large library was devoid of even the most studious of students. Prompted by her father’s strange departing words, she made her way to the bookshelves referencing various types of art and their histories.

There were colorful tomes, and small thin notebooks, thick books, and books that changed colors every time you looked at it. Crammed in an utterly unorganized fashion, the tall bookcases, nearly thrice her height, was overcapacity with informational books on wizarding art.

_The Best of Wizarding Art_

_Wizarding Art and History_

_Art: Magic or Talent?_

_Wizarding History: Art and other Influences Through the Ages_

Deep into the winding bookcases past the public tables and dimmed lights, toward the very end of the section amidst piles and piles of books, was an isolated corner by a very large window. Sitting on the ground was dark haired boy she did not recognize.

“Excuse me?” Hermione said, nearing closer the boy. When her shoe squeaked against the floor, the boy turned to her like a startled lamb. His hair was dark and messy disaster, nearly worse frizz than hers, as if he’d discovered a muggle electrical socket and stuck his hand in it. He seemed to be a first year Gryffindor if his youthful face and red and gold tie were any indication. “Have you seen Tom Riddle? He’s a first year Slytherin, short, dark brown hair. Arrogant face, likely sporting a sneer.”

“Yeah I saw ‘im.” The boy said, a blush blooming on his cheeks. He turned back to his art books shyly.

“Did you see _where_ he was?” she huffed.

The blushing boy shook his head quickly, turning back to his book as if to disappear into it.

Hermione shuffled, debating whether to go back in search for Tom, or figure out this boy’s business. “ _I’m_ Hermione Granger-Dumbledore…” when that got no reaction, not even a nod, she huffed. “What’s _your_ name?”

The boy looked at her as if confused, then suddenly, like a flip of a switch, grew angry. His red cheeks spread to the rest of his face, and his hand twitched to the wand resting beside his books. “Are you serious?” the previously timid boy nearly vibrated in anger, tears forming in his dark blue eyes. “Not again! Who put you up to it? Was it Malfoy again? Tell him he’s a right git!”

Hermione startled at his confusion mix of anger and misery, “excuse me? Are you okay?”

The boy stopped quaking and looked up at Hermione again. He noted the sincere expression on her face, the way she stepped back as if to run away at any moment. “You’re not… Malfoy didn’t send you?”

“Malf-? The Slytherin?”

“Yes… He… well he bullies me.”

“What does he do?” she furrowed her brows, heart going out to the lonely looking boy. It was a weekend and nearly everyone was outside enjoying the snowfall, but this one was in here reading a book.

 _Just another reason Friendly Pages is such a great idea_ , she thought smugly.

“He tells me I have a funny name. Gets others to laugh at it when he can. Tells me I have troll hair.” The boy winced, turning back to his book, assuming Hermione would leave him be.

“Is that all?” she said without meaning to. He got made fun of by his _name_?

“What do you mean ‘ _is that all’_? Is that not enough?” the boy said, turning red and angry all over again.

Hermione’s brow furrowed. “Well. It’s just not very complex, now is it? Compared to the dozen or so students getting spit on constantly for their blood worth…getting picked on for having a funny name seems fairly… standard,” the boy looked down as if chastised. “Don’t you have friends to talk to about this?”

“Too embarrassing.” The boy admitted, with a roll of his eyes. Yet he was perfectly okay with telling a perfect strangers all about his bullying issues. Honestly, just another reason Friendly Pages would be such a great idea!

“They’re like playground bullies, those Slytherins.” Hermione huffed, “well, let’s hear it then.”

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, not following along her train of thought. “Let’s hear what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Your _name_. The one you get picked on for. It can’t be all that bad.” The boy mumbled something below his breath. “What? I’m sorry you’ll have to speak up, I can’t-”

“My name is Fleamont. Fleamont Potter.”

Hermione blinked. “Your name is Fleamont?” When he nodded, she sighed. “You wizards and your names. Honestly, I thought _Hermione_ was exotic. You’re all a smug bunch, you know that?”

The boy, Fleamont, looked up at her, his eyebrows disappearing into his ghastly hair. “You don’t think it’s a weird name?”

“Oh no, no, it’s a terrible name… and I’m the last person to make fun of someone for having troll hair!” she gestured to her own mess of hair, though thoroughly more tamed compared to his mop. “I-”

Footsteps echoed from the other side of the Magical Art History bookshelf. Her magic extracted from her hands off their own will and danced toward the end of the shelf and turned left.

“Tom!” Hermione announced happily, seemingly staring straight through the thick bookshelf, where she could sense Tom’s magic as hers connected to it.

“Huh?” Fleamont asked. “What’re you staring at?”

“My friend Tom is here.” Hermione announced, stepping forward and poking her head into the other aisle. Sure enough, Tom stood at the end, holding up a book to his face as he tried to read the small text by the light of her magic. “Tom, over here!” she called out.

“Shh!” Tom hissed playfully, “this is a library, Mi.” He walked over, digging his hand into the back of her sweater without looking up from his book. “Honestly, Madam Pince would have better luck shushing a troll than-” he looked up, taking note of the other boy.

Immediately, like a veil being over his face, Tom shuttered his eyes and snapped his mouth shut, glaring at the other boy. “And you are?”

“This is my new _friend_.” Hermione stressed, glaring at Tom. _Behave yourself_ , she hissed internally, still slightly shocked and a bit pleased when he seemed to understand her message loud and clear. “Fleamont Potter, this is Tom Riddle, my best friend. Tom, this is Fleamont.”

Fleamont stuck his hand out boldly toward the poised snake, “Wotcher, Tom.”

Tom, for all intents and purpose a clinically diagnosed germaphobe, surprised Hermione to the bone when he took the strange new boy’s hand and gave it a firm hand shake. “ _Flea…_ mont.” She glared, not needing to have known him for nearly ten years to understand he was poking fun at the boy’s name.

“I’m just doing a bit of light reading.” Fleamont gestured to his books, not Magical Art History, like she’d assumed, but several Charms and Potions books well advanced beyond his first-year course description. “Care to join me?”

“No.”

“We’d love to!” she jabbed Tom in the ribs hard.

#

Fleamont and Tom didn’t get along as well as Hermione had hoped. Though, of course if ever she were forced to choose between a friend and _Tom_ … she would choose Tom. But was just so bloody _tedious_ to have him insult her new friend! Fleamont was too kind, too shy, and a bit too naïve, to really tell when Tom was insulting him, which was nearly every other word.

“Were you taught Charms before you came to Hogwarts, Fleamont? Were your parents _capable_?” Tom inquired, flipping through one of the Magical Art History books Hermione had handed him in hopes it would progress their little project.

Tom, as of late, had taken to a bit of an obsession over knowing who was Muggleborn and who was Pureblood. The wizarding equivalent to airing out dirty laundry. Hermione was ashamed to admit he was caught up in it.

“Yeah.” He admitted, scratching at the back of his head with the point of his wand, oblivious to Hermione’s wince as the dark brown wood got visibly tangled in the long knots. “Mum’s a whiz at charms. Potions too. My dad not so much. Better at looking pretty, my mum says.” He chuckled. “But it’s not true, he’s really smart. Bookish even. Has a seat on the Wizengamot. They say that’s pretty prestigious or some such. He works a lot, so...” he trailed off awkwardly, reaching up to touch his hair yet again.

Fleamont, once he’d warmed up to his Head of House’s daughter and her Slytherin counterpart, babbled as if he were being paid to do it. Tom, annoyed and bored with the bumbling boy, drifted to and from the table to fish new books to skim through, always keeping Hermione within his sight as he wandered off.

Before Hermione could say anything or contribute to the conversation, Tom fired off another offhanded insult, masked as a question. She felt like she was sitting in an interrogation.  

“And you hair? Is it… hereditary?”

“My hai- oh, you mean the frizz?” Fleamont winced. “Nah. My mum’s got sleek hair, dad too. They make it look so easy, you know?” he grumbled, pawing at the frizz.

“If you and your mum are so capable at potions and charms,” Tom droned off handed from where he stood a ways off, inspecting a book on a low shelf, “you should invent something to fix that hair.”

Fleamont rolled his eyes, “yeah. Suppose I’ll call it ‘Easy Sleek’ and double my family’s fortune while I’m at it. No,” he rolled his eyes and huffed, “I was born with this mess. I’ll die with this mess.”

 #

They stayed in the library nearly until dinner time. Fleamont had invited Hermione to sit with him at the Gryffindor table with his three dorm mates, but Tom leveled him with a look of such intense dislike that Hermione cold nearly see the invitation retract right back into the poor boy’s clamped mouth.

Hermine and Tom made their way to the Slytherin table, the former waving hullo to her father sitting at the teacher’s dais who was watching her enter with a happy grin.

This wasn’t the first time Hermione had sat with Tom for a meal. The students left her alone for the most part, the fact that she was a teacher’s daughter didn’t exactly put her into exile, but being muggleborn and unaffiliated to their colors outside of Tom was enough to make faces turn away in annoyance at her presence. It was, however, the first time she noticed how the Slytherins treated Tom.

He wasn’t a popular student, he was practically invisible to the rest of the school. No one gave up their chairs to offer it to him. He wasn’t greeted with grins or handshakes or high fives. No cheering rose at his arrival in the Great Hall, nor was he on first name basis with the rest of the school. But the Slytherins at least did _notice_ when he arrived.

“Tom,” one of the other first years said, a quick nod by way of greeting as Tom and Hermione passed by. Tom didn’t bother to nod back, as if he didn’t even notice he’d been acknowledged, as he helped Hermione onto the long bench. He took a plate by his side and pushed it closer to her.

“Thanks,” she said kindly, as he filled up both their glasses with pumpkin juice before turning to fill up his own plate.

“Hey, Tom. We needed those fifteen extra points in potions. Keep that up and you might win us the house cup,” another student said.

He sighed, as if responding was a great effort. “That’s the plan,” Tom said without looking up.

“Tom, er, d’ya mind looking over my History of Magic essay? You knew all the material in class this week and-”

“Two galleons and I’ll do it.” Tom bartered with a polite smile, buttering two biscuits with a thick slab of strangely colored marmalade before setting both slices onto a small plate between them near Hermione’s elbow. He licked the excess marmalade off his finger before looking up at his new customer.

The Hufflepuff girl grinned. She was pretty, Hermione noticed. She had a light smattering of freckles and tidy brown hair that curled at the ends. The girl dug into her pocket for two shiny gold galleons and handed them over to Tom, who in turn, took the rolled up parchment and delicately put it away into his book bag. “You’re my savior, Tom Riddle.”

Hermione snorted, but her magic bristled at the girl’s close proximity and batting eyelashes. It was preposterous, they were too young for anything to actually come of the girl’s harmless flirting, (if asking to cheat on your homework could even be considered flirting) but Hermione knew the basics of hormones and puberty from health and science books. Before she could think much of it, Tom turned to Hermione with a furrowed brow. Her out of character lapse in judgment was lost to his confused look.

“I don’t think she’s pretty,” he said out of the blue.

Hermione froze. “What?”

Tom rose a brow, a brief look of distaste on his mouth. “Didn’t you say something…?”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Didn’t you just say…? Never mind. What were you thinking just now? Your magic spiked. That doesn’t happen unless you’re feeling emotional.”  

“You’re quite popular today is all.” She hedged, taking one of the offered biscuits and munched before snatching a nearby dish of chicken pot pie and plating some for herself.

“And that makes you emotional?”

“No, idiot. It’s just strange. You’re… I dunno, _visible_.”

He snorted, piling rashers of seasoned steak onto his mountain of brown rice. “As opposed to me being invisible every other day? Thanks, Mi.” With a roll of her eyes she pushed a bowl of vegetables- green beans, broccoli, peas, and carrots- closer as a friendly reminder to his health.

“It’s that damned Charms class last week. They all think I’m some kind of…prodigy.” He sneered. “Apparently, the purebloods are beside themselves that a lowly, poor orphan can better control his magic than them. Inbred fools. If they could bother to pick up a book-” 

She wacked his knuckles with her clean spoon in warning, “language. _And_ that wasn’t very nice.”

He huffed, leaning over his plate like a defensive animal as he ate as fast as he could without hoking. Hermione, watching his mannerisms closely, squeezed his elbow in reminder where he was.

It had taken them a long time to realize they were no longer _just_ poor orphans. There was food a plenty at Hogwarts; fruits and vegetables and savory meats that were not previously dehydrated and left to freeze for several months for rations. It had taken her a few weeks to adjust to the atmosphere of joy the Great Hall usually emitted, no one was ever angry over a fully belly and a plate of food.

Unlike at the orphanage, with dinners being a quiet, depressing affair most times, the great hall was always filled with noise and chatter. A happy difference.

But Tom still forgot every now and then. Sometimes, the feeling of a warm belly before bed was so foreign, that they were both sick over their toilets for weeks until they grew accustomed to the seasoned and flavored foods.

Wincing, Tom nodded at her quiet warning, lowered his forkful of food, and chewed with the intent to _taste_ , not just _survive_. She smiled, patted his hand, and tucked back into her chicken pot pie, a newly discovered favorite.

She was about to reach over for the pitcher of pumpkin juice when the boy sitting across from her accidentally knocked her elbow with his wand, causing her to drop the juice jug and spill it all over her lap and table.

A few students gasped at the sudden mess and Hermione blushed in embarrassment. Tom stood up quickly, waving his wand over her clothes to cast a recently learned cleaning charm. The first-years around him took envious notice as the clothes were scourgified and dried.

 “Oh, bugger.” Hermione muttered, patting down the wet table with a few napkins before Tom gently pushed her hands away to clean the mess with a flick of his wand.

“Mind watching where you’re aiming that thing next time?” Tom snapped, gesturing to the boy’s still outstretched wand.

She was about to say it was a simple accident when she noted a small gash on the crease of the boy’s nose. A thin trail of bright red blood spindling down to his dimpled chin.

“I was trying to reach for a napkin, Riddle. No need to get your nickers in a twist, your girlfriend’s okay. Right, mudb- er, Dumbledore?”

Shocked she was being addressed, and by her rarely used last name no less, she barely had time to register any disgust to the boy’s assumption of her and Tom before Tom had his wand clenched in his hand, gently resting on the table visibly for the other boy to see. Dark smoke billowed up between them in agitation.

Hermione, wide eyed at Tom’s uncharacteristic bit of aggression in such a public place, unconsciously released a bit of glitter to mix with the smoke. The effect was immediate as Tom’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, but the hard glaze in his eye did not go away.

“Apologize, Nott, or at next Defense Club meet I might aim a stray hex somewhere unpleasant.”

Nott scoffed, “You’re not that powerful, Riddle. I’m not ‘fraid of you.”

Tom rose a brow and quickly looked to a specific seat at the other side of the table. “I didn’t say I’d aim it at _you_.”

Nott glared at Tom, looking quickly at a short, blonde haired girl standing up alongside a group of females speaking to one another in loud, shrill squeals.

Nott looked down at his plate. “Sorry, Dumbledore.”

Rolling her eyes, Hermione sighed. “An unnecessary apology, but accepted nonetheless.” She turned to Tom, “happy now?”

His magic settled down; a sign he was calm again. Tom put the wand back into his robes pocket and smiled. 

“A defense club member? How old is he then?” She whispered. The gaggle of girls and their squealing reached a crescendo as they drew closer.

“That’s Thoros Nott.” He went quiet for a moment, “He’s a second year. Only third years and up are allowed into the club but… Merrythought makes exceptions when you show proficient talent. He and that Lestrange girl are the youngest Defense members other than me. He’s a right git, then again so is Fidelius Lestrange. She’s the family’s only daughter and heir to the family name. On top of that, her father’s been Minister of Magic for the past two and a half years.” The girl he spoke of had a smug look about her. Fidelius laughed with her friends and the way her mouth curved into a sneer was eerily beautiful and oddly off putting at the same time. “Her brother’s in my year. Ramulphus. Just as nasty as his sister.” He scoffed softly, “all in all, they’re pure-blood, filthy rich, and Thoros is in love with her… but he’s been betrothed since the age of five to some other witch. Ravenclaw, I think, but I can’t be bothered to make sure.”

Hermione looked to Tom as if he’d grown another head. “How the bloody hell do you know all of-?”

“- _a betrothal to Orion of the Ancient and Noble house of Black!”_ A piercing voice screeched from across the long table. Hermione turned to look at a tall dark haired girl surrounded by the other girls, Fidelius included, behind Thoros. Her hair was pushed back into a harsh chignon and she grinned like a triumphant predator as she held up a giant emerald encrusted ring adorning her fourth finger. The envious eyes around her drank in the sight of the shiny ring as the woman squawked on about her upcoming nuptials.

Whispers followed along as students turned to look at an older boy who Hermione assumed was Orion, nose pressed into a large book, oblivious to the spectacle his fiancé was creating around him.

“I know all of this, because Slytherins, for all their cunning, like to boast.” He nodded at the unpleasant woman showing off her ring. “That’s Walburga Black.” Tom said, his lips puckering as if he’d said something sour. “Fourth-year. Has it in her mind that anyone not born of wizarding descent are-”

“ _The House of Black will remain pure!”_ the girl screeched.

“-scum. So her family has her marrying her own second family… just to be sure.”

A short girl, fifth-year, judging by the textbooks at her elbow, was sitting beside Hermione and Tom at their end of the table. She sighed in exasperation as Walburga and her followers laughed at the last comment.

“That girl’s taint couldn’t stay pure even if she scourgified herself raw,” the older girl sitting beside Hermione snapped quietly. She glanced at the smaller child beside her as if she’d just noticed her sitting here. “Oh. Sorry for the language.”

“Umm, it’s okay.” Hermione’s eyes furrowed. “Do you not like Walburga?”

“I’m Dorea _Black_. That woman,” she nodded to the cackling fourth-year still admiring her ring, “is my niece slash third cousin… or is it second?” she trailed off, staring into space, confused, before she turned back to look at Hermione. “I can never keep track anymore,” she continued with a cheery expression as if to say _what can you do?_ “Unfortunate mistake of the fates to have been related to that one. Some families don’t believe in the blood purity rubbish, but with that German bloke causing a fuss in the wizarding world, others have been buying more into it as of late. You’re muggle-born right, the both of you?” Hermione nodded, but Tom inconspicuously hissed at Hermione’s easy admission. “You keep out of that woman’s way, you hear? She might sound like a screeching hippogryph, but she has friends in high places.”

Fidelius Lestrange being one of said friends, Hermione assumed.

“Tom.” Hermione said, making her mind up on an idea she didn’t even realize she’d been contemplating. “I hope I get sorted into Slytherin.”

Tom choked on the green beans on his fork. “And _why_ would you say that?”

“Because.” She narrowed her glare on Walburga and the other girls cackling along to her racist comments, comments that didn’t just indirectly offend _her_ but offended _Tom…_ “I’m going to change their minds on blood supremacy.”

That, and exposing a few of these… these… _slags_ to her temper might cause for a bit of fun. Didn’t hurt that she and Tom would be in the same house, but their closeness was a given no matter where she’d get sorted into next year.

She didn’t grow up with Tom Riddle, a right _terror_ himself, to grow up to be some sweet, simpering little girl. She had backbone, one she would use to strike at these smug snakes with her own brand of venom.

Dorea Black, who hadn’t exactly turned her attention away from the younger children, grinned like a venomous serpent about to strike at her prey as she watched Walbuga. “If that’s true, little snake, you’ll have my full support.”

Tom sighed and said nothing, already knowing that old hat would never in a million years put her into Slytherin.


End file.
